


the devil's daughter

by meditationonbaal



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Canon subversion, Control Issues, Drug Abuse, Edging, F/M, Foul Language, Impact Play, Self-Harm, Series Rewrite, Sexual Content, Stalking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence, angst abounds, dominant/submissive undertones, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2019-11-04 16:24:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 129,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17901527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meditationonbaal/pseuds/meditationonbaal
Summary: Being seasoned for violence does not make her feel invulnerable. It makes her feel expectant.“What’s holding you together, Betty?” Jug.Stress and drugs. Sex and violence. Cults and serial killers. Pink bubblegum horror to top it off. The distortions of her life spiral around her like a nightmare kaleidoscope and he is the one still point in the maelstrom.





	1. sixteen blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m test driving this story. It’s my first foray into this fandom, and I am still wrapping my head around this new set of characters. I’ve written and outlined most of the first several chapters after this one, but I’m still refining the plot lines. Honestly, I’m still not sure what direction I will end up taking this. I appreciate any feedback, even if it is fire and brimstone. Suggestions are always welcome. 
> 
> Some hurdles to jump to set the scene. This will skip around back and forth between a rewritten season one and season two with an alternate universe season three. I’ve basically rearranged many of the season one and two plot points with some overlap. Each section will be dated to help ground the reader. Bughead will be slow, slow burn for season one and rough and ride for the last half of season two and most of three. Some other helpful notes – Hiram Lodge remains in jail for fraud and Jughead never goes to Southside High. He remains Serpent adjacent for the majority of the story. So, technically this is an alternate universe scenario. 
> 
> I write scenes to fit songs, so each section will have a song attached to it, except the interactions between Betty and Dr. Glass.

**August 2017**

**Betty**

**Dr. Glass Session #5**

 

“I’m still fixing cars,” she initiates. “And I want it to be fun, but then it’s there, in the back of my head.”

 

“What’s in the back of your head, Betty?”

 

He never takes notes, she realizes, but he remembers. She wonders if he summarizes when she leaves, some record of their sessions. He must. She does. She wants to see them, his notes on her, or maybe that is why he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to give her the temptation.

 

“You never take any notes.” He won’t like her changing the subject.

 

But, he doesn’t evade the inquiry. “I find it distracting for my patients.”

 

She respects that, almost. It distracts her anyway. “How do you remember everything?”

 

His smile seems genuine. “You know I was a waiter in high school, college. You get used to remembering what people say.” He taps his temple. “Steel trap. Are you still writing down our sessions? Afterwards?”

 

She nods.

 

“Is that helping? Are you concentrating better now, with the new meds? Sleeping better?”

 

She rarely sleeps at all. She needed the medication, a prescription she had not filled in years. Her father’s trial barely a week away, and she regrets every cat nap. That’s an excuse, too, her father’s trial, testimony prep with McCoy. She doesn’t want to sleep. She thinks about how many doors that man would have to get through, how many armed guards, concrete walls and reinforced steel, but he takes an easy shortcut to her nightmares every night. She still has the black hood in her lock box under the bed, Grundy’s Rossi nestled on top.

 

“Yes.” Effortless lie.

 

“Good.” He recrosses his legs, readjusts his posture, makes her sit up straighter in response. She wonders if he does it on purpose, swallows some stupid paranoia. _Not everyone is trying to manipulate you, Betty_. “You’re fixing cars again. That was something you used to do with your father and you enjoyed it right?”

 

“Yeah, yes, I did.”

 

“You don’t enjoy it anymore?”

 

“I’m helping Archie and his dad rebuild the engine on this beater.”

 

“You’re doing this with Archie and his dad, and it makes you think about your own father.”

 

“How could it not?”

 

He changes tacks. “How are things at home? Your mother?” Diversion. When confronted with the big bad uglies, think better. Her mother does not make her think better.

 

“She’s entertaining a cult.”

 

“What makes you think it’s a cult?”

 

“I don’t trust anybody that tells other people how they should live their lives.” Never mind she has been seeing a therapist for the better part of the summer.

 

He doesn’t let this one go. “Do you feel like I tell you how to live your life?”

 

“Not really,” she admits. “We’re just talking.” And there are rules in place, strictures that protect her.

 

“Your mother, does she seem like she is coping better after what happened with your father? Does it seem like this may have something to do with her new connections?”

 

She offers a maybe.

 

“And maybe she is doing the same thing we are doing, just talking. Most of the time, Betty, people only need someone neutral to talk to.”

 

“That’s the thing,” she starts, ramping up. “These people do not seem neutral. They want to influence her.”

 

“Betty, do you feel like you are getting something out of these sessions?” Drugs. “Something helpful?” She has not slept more than four hours in two weeks. He is treating her testimony about the Farm as an indictment on his own therapy, and she is trying to figure out the angle, if he is simply trying to give a rational explanation or he takes offense. “What about Dark Betty? Has she made any appearances lately?” She really needs to see his notes.

 

* * *

 

 

**July 2016**

**Jughead**

**Sixteen Blue by the Replacements**

 

He didn’t think he would end up being low-key friends with a deranged egghead like Dilton Doiley, but it isn’t any worse than spending another afternoon curled up in the dank dim of the trailer sifting through bare cabinets or sitting alone in Archie’s treehouse staring at Betty Cooper’s empty bedroom. He buys a fixed blade hunting knife off Doiley, who teaches Jughead a little about knife throwing. So, they spend the occasional afternoon in the middle of the woods practicing, sometimes competing for stupid things, dares. Whoever can hit the trunk from ten yards back three times in a row, loser does twenty pushups, jumps in Sweetwater naked, drinks a bottle of mustard at Pop’s, stupid shit. He throws up mustard and bile all over the restroom sink.

 

They don’t really talk about anything meaningful. Doiley ditches him a lot to go help the scouts. He ditches Doiley to run the drive-in or write by himself in Pop’s. Neither really wants to be responsible for the other, and he prefers it that way. He thinks Doiley does, too. If he shows up in the woods and Doiley isn’t there, he doesn’t care. He practices by himself.

 

If he isn’t working that night, he still climbs up into Archie’s treehouse and watches the Coopers. It feels like looking into a dollhouse, the meticulously placed furniture, pastels and blondes floating through the windows, minus the one that really matters. He craves it, just a glimpse, but all he gets is the rest.

 

He learns Jason Blossom’s schedule for climbing into Polly Cooper’s bedroom. Ten at night, mama and papa Cooper in bed, one dosed out by Ambien, the other nudged under by a third baby of scotch. Jason and Polly always have sex in the dark, so he can only make out shadows moving against one another. He wonders how loud they are. Betty’s room is right next door, always dark, always empty now. It is really the only thing he has to be thankful for, the fact Betty doesn’t have to listen to that from the room next to hers.

 

The breakup is public, very public, main aisle at Pop’s. The yelling and screaming and crying is only made more poignant and ridiculous by the red and blue neon streaking their faces. Polly looks practically rabid, manic. Jason is frustrated but weirdly composed. She reaches for his face, but he presses her hands down to a more neutral position like he is calming or chastising a pet. It makes her lash out, her palm hard against the ‘R’ patched on his letterman, nails dragging the yellow leather of his sleeves.

 

He wonders if it will stick this time, counts back on his hand, this fifth time. He thinks Jason has been wanting to break up with Polly Cooper for months based on locker room conversation and watching him flirt with other girls at the drive-in, and Jason has broken up with her. Five times now. For some reason, Jug thinks it might stick this time. Jason is nice enough to pay for her milkshake before he leaves the diner. What a gentleman.

 

Doiley shows him his personal armory buried in the woods, asks Jug if he wants to do some target practice. They shoot rusty cans and empties, a few full Coke bottles just to see the something spray, burst with glass and light. It takes him a little while to get used to the recoil, keeps pulling left on his aim, but Doiley tells him to overcorrect. It is only a .22, practically a BB gun Doiley tells him, but Jug has never shot a gun before.

 

“You know we’re nothing like them, right?” Doiley asks him, rhetorically. Jug gives him the empty revolver, muzzle pointing towards his own gut. Doiley takes it back, finger laid parallel to the trigger like a good boy scout, but Jug sees it flinch in the wrong direction briefly, makes the corner of his mouth twitch up in response, like another dare.

 

On his way out of the woods, he spies the telltale curve of a classic love-bug peeking up through riverside shrubbery. Grundy, no one else owns a silvery blue Herbie. Then, Grundy’s hands sifting over a familiar rooster top, tan limbs tangled on top of a gingham plaid picnic blanket. The bottom drops out of Jughead’s gut, but he doesn’t blame Archie. He feels bad for the kid, because that’s what he is, a kid, a really dumb, impressionable kid. Jug spots her cheap plastic red heart sunglasses lost in the grass and thinks everything is just one big joke. Regular summer of fucking love.

 

At least he knows now why Archie has been ducking him all summer, leaving him to play half-assed delinquent with Dilton Doiley. He really just wants Betty to come home.

 

Everything feels like it is simmering with the summer heat, threatening to boil over. That night Jug witnesses the Cooper dollhouse fall apart.

 

He uses Doiley’s hunting knife to carve a crown into the trunk supporting the treehouse, idly glances back through the open Cooper windows. Polishing the last curve of the initial B inside the crown, he hears Polly shatter her vanity mirror. The blade stutters on that. He keeps the tip of the knife pressed into the wood, digging in on that B, his attention arrested on Polly Cooper’s bedroom window, watches in fascination now, unblinking.

 

Polly cuts all her long blonde hair off, and his grip tightens on the handle. He watches her turn the shower on in the bathroom, steam rolling out from the open door. The shears she used to lop all her hair off, she holds them the wrong way now, blade to the soft, translucent skin of her forearms, so much like her sister’s but different.

 

Jughead drops the knife, stumbles forward on his knees across the dusty uneven floorboards of the treehouse. Balanced over the side of the platform, his hands curl around the edge of the floorboards, splintering wood digging into his palms. He hears the dulcet tones of Rosie and the Originals through Polly’s window, Angel Baby wooing and cooing as the blade splits her skin, red blooming across an expanse of white laced with Cooper blue. The music is too loud to hear it, but Hal kicks down the bedroom door, three solid strikes that fragment the wood around the lock, takes out some of the frame.

 

He watches Hal wrestle the scissors out of his eldest daughter’s hands, clamping one hand over the gash on her forearm, red smearing up the sides of his palm making Jughead think of kindergarten finger-paints. Alice Cooper is on the phone, furtively covering the receiver, guarding the bedroom door hanging half off its hinges while Hal makeshifts a bandage out of dirty laundry to staunch the bleeding. She went deep, he thinks, watching more red leech through.

  
Partway through the exchanges, the record restarts, the mild wobbling twangs of the guitar that coalesce into something pleasing, melodious, like falling in love – a rough, timid start but finding stride eventually. Polly is weak in her father’s arms. Hal looks weaker.

 

The ambulance pulls up when the song finishes its second roundabout. Alice, maintaining, answers the door and directs the medics upstairs with one manicured index. She doesn’t let Hal touch her when the paramedics cart their daughter out of the house.

 

This is the beginning of the end, Jughead writes later that night in a booth alone at Pop’s.

 

* * *

 

 

**September 2017**

**Betty**

**Dr. Glass Session #7**

 

Her father’s trial concludes and the bottom drops out. The bottom always drops out.

 

Nothing ever feels final until it is front page news, and Betty finds some twisted comfort in that. Experiencing it for herself and then reading about it the next day somehow makes it feel more real. She cuts out the article and saves it like a trophy to join the others in her box under the bed. It is becoming quite the collection, she marvels – murderers, drug busts, sex scandals. Still nothing feels clean.

 

He begins. “Any pressing questions?”

 

“One.” She takes a seat in the armchair across from him. He waits patiently, silences his phone. “About my medication. It’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.” He tells her to shoot. “Are there any possible complications with other medications?”

 

“Depends on the other medications. Are you taking something new?” She can already see his mind running through a million possible scenarios and the consequences of each, preparing his answer.

 

She has been avoiding this conversation for the past month, doing her own research and being comforted by it for the most part. But, she would feel more assured with his stamp of approval. “Just birth control.”

 

There is relief on his face, a confident answer on the tip of his tongue. “No, there shouldn’t be any complications between what I prescribe to you and birth control.” The only downside now is he knows she is sexually active, and that just feels like too much ammunition for her. She is dating Jughead. She is taking birth control. By the law of transitive properties, she is fucking Jughead, and that knowledge will only result in too many questions she can’t answer. No, that she won’t answer.

 

He waits an appropriate beat to see if she has anything else to bring up before diving in. “How are you feeling today?” He is wearing his glasses. She doesn’t like the extra barrier between their eyes, makes it harder to read him.

 

“Inured to violence.” She sits ramrod straight, ankles crossed primly, playing the part like the cameras are still on her, the jury studying at her, her father manipulating his wedding ring and watching her.

 

“I remember being a teenager,” he starts, giving her a look like he is quietly asking for permission to continue unless she has something more urgent to address. She blinks, keeps the silence on her end to let him know he can finish his thought, her plastic smile inviting. “My pride started getting the better of me, and I began thinking I was invulnerable.”

 

“Isn’t that typical of teenagers, though?” she offers.

 

Dr. Glass nods. “Within reason.”

 

“I don’t feel untouchable,” she admits. She feels raw. And at the time it was happening, she felt trapped by the very real prospect of death, a tangible specter over her head, like the personification of her own darkness becoming a reality, a real person. Her lack of surprise at finding out it was her father didn’t make it any less painful.

 

She still hears phantom rings of bubblegum horror, his bastardized voice. _Did you miss me?_ To death.

 

About being adapted to violence, she is sure of it now more than ever. Saturday night was pagan gods and bonfires and floating infants – one grand delusion that followed her into oblivion. Blinking into consciousness, she was already parsing the possible metaphors, the violence of her seizure forgotten. Her head was pulsing and her mother had an ice pack pressed to a swollen lump at the base of her skull where she clocked the deck. Someone from the Farm was trying to convince Polly not to call an ambulance, that all Betty needed was a decoction of questionable origins, and that got Betty pushing herself up and away even as her vision swam.

 

Being seasoned for violence does not make her feel invulnerable. It makes her feel expectant.

 

“What’s holding you together, Betty?” Jug.

 

Stress and drugs. Sex and violence. Cults and serial killers. Pink bubblegum horror to top it off. The distortions of her life spiral around her like a nightmare kaleidoscope and he is the one still point in the maelstrom.

 

* * *

 

 

**September 2017**

**Jughead**

**Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan**

 

He resists defaulting to the offensive, tapping out his frustrations in his foot and biting his cuticles instead. When he hears the station wagon door slam, he pinches the curtains aside, watches her meander, practically skipping, around potholes towards the trailer, the skirt of her lavender sundress swishing about her thighs.

 

He opens the door before she can knock, and she collapses forward into him, her hands sliding automatically under his flannel shirt, smoothing along the back of his ribs over the soft cotton of his wife-beater. He has to brace one arm along her bare shoulders to keep from falling, tosses the door closed behind her. She snaps his suspenders affectionately, burying her face into his chest, her cheekbone solid against his sternum.

 

He grinds his irritation between his teeth, mollifies some by pressing a brief kiss to the side of her head. The scent of vanilla calming, it lets him whisper, “Your mom told me.”

 

Her head shoots up at that, nearly cuffing him on the chin. “What? When? How?”

 

“I ran into her at Pop’s.” He asked after Betty like always and observed Alice shift into investigative journalist mode, felt the other shoe dropping as her prim eyebrow arched. He regretted asking because of course she blamed him. At least partially. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

His palm cups the base of her skull to angle her gaze upwards, but she hisses when his fingers press against a tender spot. He is quick with an apology, nearly turns her about-face to survey the damage but she holds fast. “Even the doctors said it was mild and I’m fine,” she reasons instantly. “It’s just leftover stress from the trial, I promise.” Her shoulders bunch up with a _what can I do_?

 

His fingers instinctively find the tension knots in her shoulders, squeezing, feeling her melt, practically purr into him. “Are you sleeping okay?”

 

“I’ve been a little restless lately,” she confesses, closing her eyes as his hands work her over. “It’s like I have too much energy, too many thoughts.” She opens her eyes up at him, runs her teeth over her bottom lip. “Think maybe you can help with that?”

 

His smile breaks down his concern, any leftover frustration. “Yeah,” he breathes against her ear, his arm snaking along her lower back. “Yeah, I think I can help with that.” He practically hauls her towards the bedroom, the toes of her canvas shoes dragging along the thin linoleum through the cramped kitchen, feels her heady giggle through his chest.

 

He maneuvers her backwards, flattening her against the flimsy door to his bedroom. He has to get her out of that purple sundress. Lavender is her color, but he only gets to see it in summer. His fingers are already toying with the hidden zipper under her arm, his thumb tender against the sensitive pressure point at the top of her ribs.

 

“You’ll tell me next time,” he commands, soft but he means it. It isn’t a suggestion. She nods obediently, tries to unclip his suspenders. “Please take care of yourself.” She nods again, gets one suspender strap undone. Her ponytail bounces with her nodding, begging for a tug. He loves having something to grab onto, something that keeps her looking at him, only him. Her lips part in half surprise when he does, gathering her ponytail up in his hand and tugging. She grunts pleased, arching her neck, her body sinking into him. “Tell me you will.”

 

Without hesitation, “I will tell you next time.” His fingers slip from her ponytail bringing the tie with them.

 

She pushes his beanie off in retaliation before he can say boo, nothing but a chastising ‘hey.’ They both still have their security blankets, both iconic and beyond reproach. They give each other the privilege of taking it away.

 

“Never again, Jughead Jones,” she swears, nudging the flannel off his shoulders to let it pile on top of his crown.

 

“It was one time,” he argues, nipping along her jawline.

 

She toes off her sneakers while his fingers draw down the side zipper, skating under the lavender fabric. The movement causes one thin strap to slip over her bare shoulder, and his lips trace that path, teeth catching on the knob of her clavicle. Her shoulder bumps against his mouth as she flips the other suspender strap off, like he has been unleashed, and he growls, sweeps her towards the bed just to hear her tinkling laugh. The mattress rushes up around them, and she presses her mouth to his, more teeth than a real kiss when she tries to stop laughing. “You really are energetic today,” he murmurs, his fingers finding the other strap of her dress.

 

“Okay, rules,” he begins, an expectant look her way.

 

She mms and wriggles a little, giddy with excitement. “Oh, we’re gonna play?”

 

He nods, peeling her dress down while his lips follow in its wake, stop and linger on the slight soft swell just below her navel. No bra. God, he loves summer. He palms her breasts, feels her inhale against him, skims down along her ribcage reverently.

 

“You tell me what to do,” she decides, a delicious flush spreading across her chest, her cheeks, makes her skin look like a peach. His foreplay with her ponytail set the stage. A part of him just wants to order her to sleep, rest, slow down, because her eyes are too bright, unfocused, a false energy. But the other part – the part he still struggles with – cannot pass up the chance to play, to have her obedient. She gazes down at him perched between her legs, sea glass eyes anticipating, the true want a little hidden.

 

“Tell me what you need.” It’s a demand, the truth, the last inhibition.

 

Her teeth sink into her lower lip as a barrier against the words, because he always makes her say it. She needs to say it, and he needs to hear it. He resists the urge to press his thumb to her chin, tug her lip free, waits patiently for her consent. Like she knows, her lip slips from her teeth and the words come with its release. “I need you to take control.” Permission granted.

 

“Okay,” he starts again, understanding. “Rule. You aren’t allowed to touch me.” She murmurs _yes, sir_ , already salty. He cuffs her wrists and presses her hands to the pillow above her head. “Do not move your hands from here.” Punctuating the demand with a gentle squeeze to each wrist.

 

“You’re not going to tie me down?” It’s a dare. His jeans feel tighter at the thought.

 

“Let’s work on your self-control,” he reasons, returning to undressing her. He needs to work on his, too. His fingers dip under the elastic of her panties and strip them away with the rest of her dress. Saliva pools in his mouth with the proximity to her cunt, but he busies his mouth on other safer points of contact, the curve of her ankle bone, the indent of her knee, his lips grazing along one thigh.

 

“Is that the only rule today?”

 

His eyes flicker to hers, fighting a smirk. “You want more?” His imagination has room for a tome of rules, anthologies of rules. She sucks her lips over her teeth, keeps mum.

 

This is still new to them, adjusting to the dynamics, the game. Sometimes she needs this. Sometimes he does. And other times they don’t engage in the play. Other times it is just them, perfectly satisfying, but on occasion not enough. Sometimes they both need more, and when she asked him the first time, terrified to even raise the question, he kissed the worry off her face when he admitted he wanted to play, too.

 

She struggles to keep her hands above her head as his sinks between her legs, his arms bracing her thighs. He learned his lesson the hard way, nearly crushed between her thighs the first time. Lucky because of his tendency to inhale an entire Pop’s double cheeseburger without taking a breath, and luckier because she still got off and he lived. _I’m so sorry, Jug_ , when he resurfaced gasping, painfully hard, thinking if he was going to die, there were worse ways to go. And if he had his choice, dying between Betty Cooper’s thighs was at the top of his list. He dedicated his summer to the study of Betty Cooper’s body and damn hubris if he hadn’t become a star pupil in that arena. 

 

He presses his cheek to one downy thigh, the warm pulse of her skin building with her anticipation. He blows cool air against her sex, feels her thighs shift against his shoulders as she forces herself not to close them. She props herself up on her elbows to watch him, already breaking the one rule. He nearly wants to make another, no looking, blindfold her or make her close her eyes. The latter is meaner. But, he doesn’t.

 

He grips the handles of her hipbones and keeps her gaze, watches the tip of her pink tongue press against the point of her incisor as he dips his head. Her lips part farther, mirroring his own when his mouth envelopes her cunt, his tongue licking one solid stripe up the seam of her sex and ending on her clit. Her gaze rolls up and away to leave him to his work. Her head lolls to the side, cheek pressed to shoulder as her eyes drift closed, and he smothers a smirk inside her. She drops back, her arms stretching above of their own accord as an appreciate smile spreads across her lips.

 

He thought he would always be the passive observer of Betty’s life, her lonely moon in endless orbit, gravity pulling but never finding purchase. Now, he is an active participant, tonguing _Jughead Jones wuz here_ into her pussy over and over like a punishment on chalkboard, her arousal in his mouth a reward for years of patience. 

 

He feels her fingers sink into his hair, nails carving down his scalp, and it makes him groan, tilt his head towards her hand, but it’s against the rules. “Hands, Betty,” he mumbles to her thigh, the muscles jumping with his words. She whines, her palms smacking the pillow above her head.

 

“I want you inside.” He lifts his eyes to see her, breathless and bothered, a halo of gold fly-aways brushing her face. He licks his lips, her eyes seeking the movement of his tongue, feeling the memory of it inside when her thighs shift again. “I want to come with you inside.” She always manages to wrest back some control. Sometimes he wonders if she ever really gives it up.

 

He nods okay, okay, releases her thighs to sit up. “You stay right where you are,” he reminds her as he kicks off his jeans, peels his wife-beater over his head, tempted to place a hand on her hip to keep her still.

 

He settles back between her legs, his hand slipping over her pussy. She hisses, sensitive, her hips pulling away, and his hand leaves her to slick her arousal on his cock. Allowing himself a few gratifying tugs, he distracts himself by letting his free hand sift through all that spun gold. He gets a grip on her hair, angles her pretty skull how he likes to seal his mouth on hers. She cheats and slips her tongue inside his mouth before he can, swipes along his teeth, his tongue, tasting herself. Her mouth follows his as he pulls away, but he braces one arm under her knee, nearly folds her in half. Her other leg drapes along the back of his thigh, feels her heel slide affectionately along his calf. “I love you, Jug.”

 

He wants to make a study of her like this, cataloguing every image, every instance of this act. Allowing him to manipulate her against his bed, her palms flat against the pillow above her head, steadying her breathing and licking her lips of the remnants of herself left behind from his mouth on hers. Appearing composed but he can see it in the slight tremble of her outstretched fingers, the tightness in her akimbo elbows, curbing her anxiety and aching to please him. As he pushes in, her composure shatters, head tossed back in one drawn out moan and fingers dragging into the pillow to keep from digging into him.

 

He still cannot get over how fucking amazing it feels to be inside her, like it is a revelation each time. He shifts higher on his knees for leverage, sinks inside her again, relishes her responding sigh. It is one of the things he loves most about her, her responsiveness, her active participation. Her wanting him is never a question. 

 

She turns her head, sinks her teeth into the side of her upper arm. When she tenses, his hips lose their rhythm for a second, holding steady, swallowing the unwelcome and impending need to come. _Too soon, Jones, take a breath._ He thinks he will never get used to this.

 

“Please,” she begs, her fingers curling inwards, knuckles whitening. He can only nod, duck his head as her arms snake behind his neck, her nails digging into his shoulders instead of her palms. He hitches her knee higher as punishment for breaking the rules, gets deeper but she can’t move against him, restraining her hips to the bed.

 

“Can I touch myself?” His balls throb with the question, sounding a little ashamed to ask. His _mmhm_ is strained. He was about to take point.

 

He feels her hand cover his own, fingers slipping into the in-between spaces of his. Her other slithers between their bodies, knuckles brushing his public bone, fingertips pressing to the little bundle of nerves that makes her seize, a tight hot suck makes it harder to move. He curses, moves his hand over hers to trap it against the mattress, buries his other in her hair while his thrusts get shorter, rougher, the rhythm staggering. She murmurs lewd incoherencies against the shell of his ear, his name lost breathless somewhere along the way, _I’m gonna –_. A broken sob sharp in his ear complements his wounded groan when his hips stutter, spine melting. He is only a drunken blur of nerve endings, an exclamation point the epitome of euphoric completion, his weight sinking over her as she comes undone too.

 

He only realizes after how deep his teeth sunk into the flesh of her shoulder, right over those persistent tension knots he is so fond of. His tongue traces the indentations like an apology, soothing the skin broken in places. He releases her knee from the mattress, notes her wince more from that than the bite mark.

 

“Don’t let me sleep tonight, Jug,” she whispers, her hands freed, tracing shapes on the nape of his neck with her cheek cradled against his shoulder. It is a soft beg but it carves a path in his chest. He props himself up on his elbows to look at her, read her, stray fingers carding through her loose hair like leafing through pages, indexing and reviewing the private book he has written of her.

 

Does their fairytale, their tale of horror, happily end? Real fairytales, the uncommercial ones, have the unhappiest of endings, and the characters come out the other side fundamentally changed. Some don’t come out the other side at all. So while the chapter on their last huntsman closes, they both sit on the next blank page as edited versions of themselves wondering where the story goes from there. No, amended. Amended is better. Amended and more developed versions of themselves, because he is more than before, better than before, and whole despite all the people missing from their lives now, his father, hers. But, he knows from experience that when you cut the head off one monster, another inevitably grows back in its place.  

 

He traces a crown just under her right breast, imagines how it would dip and curve over each rib, like he wants it there forever, his private reminder, hers.

 

Her curious whisper trails with her fingers in his hair. “Jug, how do you still have this trailer?”

 

He looks around the room like he is thinking about it, too, marveling the thing still stands in his name. “The Serpents,” he guesses, knows actually. He fills in the blanks with his income from the Twilight, keeps the lights on, the water running. Sometimes he slips on the heat, but she makes up for it.

 

It feels like a debt months after the fact. His father assures him there is no such thing. _Serpents take care of their own_. FP did his part, but Jug wonders if that loyalty lasts a life sentence. He knows eventually he will have to give it up, this last place he called home, because his father won’t be getting out any time soon, if ever. The Serpents will figure that out, too. What Jug has now, it’s a borderline fantasy. It isn’t sustainable. None of this is sustainable.

 

“When was the last time you visited him?”

 

He admits it has been a while, a month. “But, his appeal is coming up.”

 

She looks like she wants to ask more. Her eyes are investigation green, but he flops onto his side with her gathered up in his arms. “Go to sleep, Betty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I have not made plans to add the Lodges to this story, I am open to petitions for their inclusion. I just think Hiram Lodge might complicate the plotlines, but Veronica may offer some necessary foil for Betty and a needed distraction for the red-headed Labrador. 
> 
> If I forgot anything glaring that should be tagged, please let me know and I will make the appropriate changes. I don't want anyone to jump into anything they are not prepared for. 
> 
> Also, I swore I was going to sit on this story a little longer to make sure I got more than a few solid chapters done, but I just couldn't wait. I have no self-control. I will try my best to release chapters in a timely manner, even though my track record is abysmal.


	2. david bowie i've loved you since i was six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all of your comments and kudos! The response has been encouraging, and I'm glad you all are enjoying this so far. 
> 
> This chapter was a roller coaster to write. The Lost Weekend is in my top five favorite Riverdale episodes, for sure. I shifted it to the beginning of season three, essentially. Many things have happened between the beginning of season one and the beginning of season three that will explain all of this. My timeline is all kinds of screwed, I know. 
> 
> I am pretty bad at developing plots and usually devolve into prolonged character perspectives. I am trying to make everything in this a slow reveal, so please bear with me if it seems confusing at first. The story will come together in time.
> 
> Also, this got soooo long. I never used to write lengthy chapters, but in recent years, writing a chapter under five thousand words started to become a chore. Technically, one chapter is like five (seven) sectioned out. 
> 
> Again, any feedback is much appreciated :) Okay, enough chit-chat.

**September 2017**

**Betty**

**All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Bauhaus**

 

Five minutes to the first bell that will herald the start of her first semester of junior year, Betty deliberates over highlighter colors. Efficient yellow or attention-grabbing pink, diplomatic blue or peaceful lavender, she rolls her index finger over each one, considers their merits individually. Each color has its place. She just has to figure it out. Maybe she should just color-code based on priority as she has always done, red for bigger-picture points, orange for context, and yellow for clarification. Pink for after-thoughts and – color, interesting tidbits that might improve an otherwise bland essay, light up a standard point A to point B argument.

 

 _Maintaining a decent character is hugely important, Elizabeth._ The pink helps her find her character. And she needs to protect herself. She needs her reputation to protect herself.

 

Her mother woke her before the alarm. She brushed Betty’s hair, something she hadn’t done since Betty was very young, gathered her hair back into that tight, perfect ponytail. “Perhaps you should consider homeschooling for a little while,” her mother offered, heating up the curling iron. “Edgar has some former teachers at the farm. And you’re so smart, Betty. I know you can do it on your own.”

 

It was in such stark contrast to her mother’s mentality just a year before that Betty could only level with her mother’s reflection, afraid to turn around. “I’m not ashamed, mom.” She wanted to sound determined, confident, but her voice warbled by the end.

 

Alice smiled tight, twisted one curling tail around her fingers. “I know, sweetie.” But, she looked at her like she should be.

 

There is no guesswork when Betty catches a whiff of saccharine sweetness behind her, the sickly sweet cherry and maple syrup aura of Cheryl Blossom. “Betty!” A pleasant surprise, like two friends reconnecting after summer vacation. “Infamy and disgrace look good on you, really complement your eyes.”

 

Betty maintains her position on the Vixens, forever relegated to the backrow during practices and games, but for most of sophomore year her place with the Riverdale cheerleaders was tenuous at best. Cheryl tolerated her because she stayed pretty in the background and never asked for more. Even though Cheryl continued to abhor Betty by association, she never cut her from the Vixens. It’s a new year, though, new revelations, new territory. Betty isn’t even sure she wants to stay on the team.  

 

“You ready to pick up the torch for daddy-dearest? I bet your twisted Jason Dean would gladly fill those shoes, chips off the old block, right?” Cheryl’s clipped inquisition brokers no room for rebuttal, just a passing massacre of words, heaping damaging idioms like death by a thousand cuts. “Daughter of a former gang member and a serial killer, dead drug addict prostitute brother, crazy mental sister. And now you’re dating our resident Donnie Darko, son of a murdering criminal kingpin, a match made in heaven. It becomes you, Betty.”

 

Drugs her daddy pushed. Crazy her sociopathic dead brother made. Cheryl is just as ruined as she, as Jug. All beside the point. Her father killed people. Her mother was a former Serpent, but worse than that used the Register to slander and tear apart her community, her neighbors, her own family without remorse. Mentally unsound victims of vice and narcissism and wrath, these formed the rotten family tree of the Coopers, a twisted offshoot from the equally as malformed, inbred Blossoms. Karma had come to collect for the Coopers, the Blossoms. Cheryl and Betty share more than blood and not just the infant twins. Something else, something their blood created, some other beast that wound its way into both of them early and still wants.

 

Betty swallows bile, her heart the lump in her throat, and steps closer to level her gaze with Cheryl, curls nails into her palms to keep them from wrapping around the redhead’s neck. “Get away from me before I _kill you_.” Sometimes she thinks to herself – privately – stop fighting the inevitable.

 

There is a brief flicker of apprehension, fear, but it’s wiped away by one arching eyebrow as Cheryl sucks her tongue over her teeth out of habit, lipstick check. She grants Betty one last withering look, _not so perfect anymore_.

 

Out of sight out of mind, Betty closes her locker quietly, drags her fingers along the padlock numbers as she spins on her heels towards the Blue and Gold office. There are more important things to worry about, she thinks. Cheryl’s social bloodshed relegated to page six, she thinks about what belongs above the fold front and center, a place of honor for the one who deserves it.

 

* * *

 

 

**September 2017**

**Jughead**

**Six Different Ways by the Cure**

 

He feels the crush of students shifting behind him, squeaking sneakers and static chatter, feels beetle-backed, hardened against the incidental brushes against his shoulders, an unthinking shove here and there.

 

“Hey, American Psycho.” He half-turns towards the address before a thoughtful shove twists him the rest of the way, his shoulders making familiar, abrupt contact with his locker and shutting the door for him. “Busy summer, Jones? Body count coming along?” Jughead gets the lay of the land past Reggie, no stray bulldogs waiting to chime in. To Jughead’s disappointment, time and distance have not softened Reginald Mantle, and his guts ache just looking at the ‘R’ on his letterman.

 

“Business cards haven’t come in yet.” It is a weak joke, playing along, busy summer, ha-ha, but the reference is lost on Mantle. Jughead sighs, waits for the dumb jock to feel insulted even if Reggie referenced Patrick Bateman first. He should be thankful it is only Reggie. Jughead smiles and feels like a psycho, because for animals of Reggie’s caliber showing teeth is a sign of aggression.

 

Reggie smiles back and nods like they are having a grand ole time, pats Jughead’s shoulders good-naturedly. Jughead reminds himself not to bite his tongue when Reggie gets a grip on his jacket, slams him in to the locker.  “For the record, Donnie Darko, you may not have gotten caught this time, but I’m still on to you. I don’t fucking trust you.” He jabs the scar tissue on Jughead’s belly. “You so much as look at us the wrong way, expect another, Jones.”

 

Reggie dusts off Jughead’s shoulders and smirks before folding back into the fray of students who didn’t so much as bat an eyelash at the exchange. Jughead adjusts his shoulders against his locker. Yeah, bruised. Kill or be killed, Jones.

 

He makes it three steps into the Blue and Gold office before Betty tumbles into him. “It’s your birthday,” she chirps giddy, her fingers curling the edges of his sherpa where Reggie just manhandled him.

 

It isn’t. It is four days away, hanging over his head like a doomsday clock. “Say it louder,” he groans, kicking the office door closed behind her.

 

“Are we still going to the Bijoux with Archie?” She shakes her head and tells him it will only be the two of them. He slips his hand over her shoulder, his palm kneading the tense muscle, but she winces, her shoulder jerking back. He pinches the collar of her sweater aside. The bite mark is a bruise. Jesus, he still needs to work on his control. He thumbs over it, apologizing.

 

She cups his cheek, tells him it’s fine, it was a reflex. Her nail marks are still streaking down his shoulder blades, scabbed over. She traces them to make a point. “I liked it,” she admits, whispering the words against his mouth. The thing living inside him, the part he struggles with, whispers back in his head that he isn’t so sure, the reflex.

 

She changes the subject. “How was your morning?”

 

“Oh, you know, another day in our private _No Exit_ called state-mandated secondary education. Reggie Mantle spraying his territory, same song, different verse.” His eyes are still studying the dental records he left in her shoulder, and she shrugs to let her sweater collar slip from his fingers and fall back into place.

 

She rolls her eyes. “I know what you mean. Cheryl.”

 

“Publically claiming her alpha-female status to start the new school year? Right on schedule.” She sighs and nods, but smiles nonetheless.

 

“We all have our albatrosses, Ms. Cooper,” he says. Even today, first day of school, plays second fiddle to his birthday, but he will grin and bear both. And maybe not even bear it this year, the first he will spend alone with her. Maybe this year it will be bearable. “Should we just burn the whole world down?” He wants to sometimes, really just level the playing field and start from scratch.

 

“Not without celebrating your seventeenth first,” she reminds him, like she actually thought about it.

 

“Hey, you would tell me if I went too far.” It’s not really a question. He can feel the heat from the bruise under his palm.

 

“Yes, of course.” She would. She knows she would. Some doubt, though, on his end he feels, on hers.

 

The bell rings and she steps out from his arms with a whispery _later_. She doesn’t realize she left red crescent moon prints on his jacket as she flutters off to class.

 

* * *

 

 

**August 2016**

**Jughead**

**Space Song by Beach House**

 

She returns from her internship to handle the aftermath. Her mother needs someone to sink her teeth into now that Polly is – somewhere.

 

His fingers trace the crown, the finished initials, watches her check the hallway before closing her door all the way, tiptoeing back across the plush carpet towards her window. She texts something on her phone, her gaze flickering to the redhead’s window across the way, searching for that familiar flaming hair tipping into view, maybe groggy from sleep. But, he isn’t there. He’s fucking Geraldine Grundy in her love bug.

 

Jughead clips the soles of his sneakers together, watching her send another message, hopeful the second little bing will jar the redhead awake, but it is like sound in a vacuum. Her hopeful mouth falling, tossing her phone on the bed, turning away from the window with a fretful whip of her ponytail. Her mother knocks, shouting about closed doors. They have removed the locks from all the bedrooms. He watched Hal go to work with the drill one week after Polly’s incident. Accident? Nuclear meltdown?

 

The Coopers fall apart, the Andrews around the corner, the Jones long gone, and he knows Betty Cooper will go down with the lot of them, follow loyally, blindly, faithfully. He dreads it, the fallout forming in her features at this moment as she stares at her closed bedroom door, Archie’s dark window at her back like a question mark she will never get the answer for and Jughead Jones lurking in their childhood treehouse feeling like an afterthought. He traces the hopes and dreams he carved into the trunk supporting their treehouse, theirs, the one they built together with the help of all their fathers.

 

In another week, she is back to being Miss Torso, twirling about the bedroom in her brand new cheerleading uniform, adjusting the volume on her vintage speakers based on where her mother is situated in the house at the moment. He can’t help but watch rapt, her ponytail bobbing in and out of view, the elastic happiness in her body that always inevitably bounces back. His heart twists with her spinning torso, lifted up in her hands, fingers twining his heartstrings.

 

To celebrate her return, he decides to play a Hitchcock marathon at the drive-in in her honor, double triple features over the course of the weekend before school starts. _Shadow of a Doubt_ and _Spellbound_ for Friday night. Saturday night will be Grace Kelly, _Dial M for Murder_ and _Rear Window_ and _To Catch a Thief_ , all about her. He catches her at Pop’s on purpose to give her a flyer, hints at his hope that she will make it. “It’s my ‘welcome home’ present to you,” he lets slip, studying the flush that creeps up her neck, the soft charmed tickled smile she gives him, his favorite Hitchcock blonde.

 

Just then Chuck Clayton nudges by him into the seat opposite Betty, confirming whether they’re still on for their date that weekend. She flashes Chuck the flyer with an inviting smile, and Jughead can see Chuck’s eyes glaze over with disinterest in the films and too much interest in getting Betty into the backseat of his car.

 

Jug turns to leave when Betty’s hand slips over his forearm. He nearly drops the rest of his flyers. “Thank you, Jughead.” He mumbles _sure_ , tugs free from her abrasive kindness.

 

He watches through the slim view between the projector and the frame of the porthole. Chuck’s Jeep is parked near the back of the lot. It has to be too far for Betty’s liking, he’s sure. Miss Torso flits across the screen in her pink underthings, dancing across the lenses of Stewart’s binoculars. Betty traces her form across the screen, and Jughead wonders if she can see herself in that happy carefree perfection. He sees it nearly every night.

 

Chuck slings his arm across Betty’s shoulders, gathers her closer to whisper something in her ear.

 

Someone slams the aluminum siding of the projection booth, and Jughead tears his eyes away from the cab of Chuck Clayton’s Jeep towards the flimsy door bending inward with the fist pounding it. “Jesus, one moment,” he tries, checking the projector, rolling the chair towards the door.

 

He opens it a few inches to find his haphazard father leaning against the side of the booth, his grizzly face peering through. One shark eye glides across the small space, his palm flattening against the particle board door and shoving his way into the booth.

 

The booth feels cramped with just Jughead. It feels like a closet with the addition of his father, the walls closer with the stench of piss liquor and leather. “This where you been staying?” He waves his hand at the army surplus cot and old military sleeping blanket rolled up tight at the end, always ready to bolt, his jam bag under the cot. Jughead shrugs, rocks back and forth in the chair, the casters squeaking.

 

“Probably for the best,” his father admits. “Keller said anything to you yet?” He shakes his head. “You call me if he does. Just keep laying low.” Jughead nods slowly. “You still know how to speak?”

 

He locks his teeth at that, staring at his father barely able to stay standing, one hand on a stack of overdue library books that threatens to slip out from under him with his unbalanced weight. “You can come home, if you need to, Jug,” he offers even though he doesn’t mean it, standard FP lip service. He’s the one that asked Jug to leave. Jughead only offers him a _maybe_ , the only word he gives him that night.

 

He listens to his father pound back down the steps and turns back to the projector, checks the film, everything running smoothly, allows himself to look.

 

The passenger side door falls open with a stumbling Betty, pale coltish legs trying to find purchase in the mud. She catches herself on the adjacent car where a couple peers curiously through a fogged up window. Chuck’s hand reaches out from the backseat of his car but retracts when he notices the unwanted attention from the neighboring cars directed towards him.

 

Jughead repels himself away from the wall of the projection booth, the chair rolling back towards the door and him with it to spill out onto the steps. “Betty,” he calls from the top of the projection booth. She holds herself trembling, her nails digging into her arms, but her gaze turns up at him, dark weathered blue.

 

They sit side by side on the steps to the projection booth. He wants to slide his arm along her shoulders, comfort her, but figures the last time a boy did this, just minutes ago when Chuck did this, it didn’t end well. The end credits of _Rear Window_ roll through and some of the crowd are already filing out, weary from the rowdiness of the biker gang circling the concession stand, sick of wading through dirty snipes and leers just for stale popcorn and rock hard milk-duds. No one has the stomach to stick around for _To Catch A Thief_.

 

He watches his father fake fight with a younger Serpent and wonders if that’s what this charade is for, the Serpents loitering week after week at the drive-in, his father’s not so subtle attempt to keep tabs on him.

 

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Her sweater-covered fingers sweeping under her eyes to catch the streaking mascara and eyeliner. He offers the hem of his shirt, and she just laughs a little, _you’re sweet, Jug_. Her hands fall in her lap, sweater sleeves rolled up to hide the eye makeup, and he notices a rosy ring around one wrist, something like the Indian burns they gave each other as kids. His insides start to boil, itching to run his fingers across the mark, soothe the burn on her skin, the burning in his gut.

 

“Can I walk you home?” He twists his shirt in his hands waiting for her answer.

 

She looks up at the projection booth. “Don’t you have to work?”

 

“Yeah,” he concedes. “But maybe you could watch the last one from the best seat in the house?” He jabs his thumb at the projection booth. “Free candy, your choice.” Wet eyes that shift to blue when she is upset, worried, and he watches them change back to green smiling at him. He loves her, loves her, loves her. He doesn’t even care if she sees his makeshift home; the excuses are easy. He watches her eyes light on the grace of Ms. Kelly and wants to kiss her.

 

He dulls his knife on the tree trunk practicing for hours Sunday afternoon. Doiley lends him his knife-sharpening kit, shows him the correct angle to use. Dilton gets called to dinner, and Jughead dulls his knife again, again until he can’t feel his fingers anymore from fall settling in. He crawls back into the projection booth and goes to bed cold and hungry. Behind closed eyes he sees Betty tumbling out of Chuck’s backseat over and over again.

 

Within a week, it’s splashed all over the pages of the recently revived _Blue and Gold_ – BOOK OF SHAME. There is a meeting with the principal. Alice and Hal Cooper are there with Chuck Clayton and his head coach father. Betty’s testimony is not required for the meeting, and he wonders what extra dirt she managed to dig up on the first string running back. Chuck Clayton doesn’t show up for school the next day or any of the days that follow. The whispered rumors behind his disappearance are soon overshadowed by Jason Blossom’s body washing up on the shores of Sweetwater River.

 

Just when he was starting to feel lost, truly isolated, she asks him to meet her in the derelict Blue and Gold office. He finds her draped over one of the desks dozing, sleepless bruises under her eyes. He reaches to nudge her awake, spies a smudge of red on her chin, visceral like a nick but it’s just lipstick, a color she never wears. He stares at the scarlet smear on his thumb, imagines it on her lips instead of her go-to pink perfection and peach gloss, feels his dick twitch with the thought.

 

“I fell asleep!” She shoots up and he wipes the lipstick on his jeans.

 

“Obviously,” he says, feeling out of place.

 

She tightens her ponytail and stands up smiling. A tickled light replaces the sleep-deprived haze in her eyes, and she twists on her heels with anticipation like she wasn’t just softly snoring moments ago. “You’re writing about Jason Blossom, right?”

 

His version, sure. “Riverdale’s very own _In Cold Blood_.” He studies her through the magnifying glass, one wet green eye amplified.

 

“Which started out as a series of articles. Jug, come write for the Blue and Gold!” she implores, her arms spread wide with all she has to offer him, dusty Reagan-era computers and half-used steno pads and her.

 

He’s already sold, but he makes her work a little harder. Just to watch her squirm, he tells himself. “Would I get complete freedom?”

 

“I’ll help,” she starts and he gives her a look expecting more, loaded die. “And edit. And suggest.” He rolls his eyes, but she tacks on some assurance. “But it’s your story. It’s your voice.” He doesn’t leave her hanging long, just wants to build up her anticipation to get a better reaction, a more grateful smile. She rewards him dutifully but it still feels too brief, not enough, before she hints at his first assignment. He doesn’t have any trouble reading her mind for that one.

 

Create an investigation. Distract her. Lock in her attention. These are his objectives for the semester, privately outlined in his mind. They’re simple. He can keep track of them.

 

It was then the story started to take shape. She suggested they construct an ‘investigation board’ with all the details they knew about the case, like something they had both seen in every detective movie ever made, a murder board. He saw the blank canvas, the narrative he could create, diverting attention towards more preferable targets. Spending time with Betty was just icing, his little hot-to-trot Nancy Drew.

 

They studied the leaked autopsy report, forming theories about every thread of evidence – duration of freezing, estimated time period of death, the significance of the fourth of July weekend. In the beginning, they butted heads on certain key details of the case, whether discovering the body on the banks of the Sweetwater was intentional, the reasoning behind holding the body more than a month before dumping it. Even the emotions behind the method of Jason’s demise were up for debate.

 

“It was a crime of passion, Jug. Jason Blossom was bludgeoned nearly to death then someone shot him. That takes work, dedication, commitment, and mercy.” He loved watching Betty riff during the investigation, studying her passion, swallowing his own.

 

“Or intense hatred,” he offered. “Caving in someone’s skull takes some serious animosity.” Her eyes lit up, gears turning, and with it a sense of admiration in his direction. That was when he set his goals – perpetuate her interest in the investigation, distract her with conflicting threads of evidence, direct her attention. “So why shoot him? If it was all passion, why not finish what you start?”

 

She bit her lip on a personal theory, glanced over the leaked autopsy, and he stamped out the intense dread filling his gut. “The gunshot to the head implies mercy,” she mumbled mostly to herself, flipping up the first page of the autopsy report to read the second. “It feels inconsistent. I think there were two people involved. One person bludgeoned him. The second person shot him to end it.”

 

He didn’t ask her about what happened with Chuck and the aftermath. She didn’t ask him about the setup in the projection booth. And so they circled like that for most of the semester, distracted each other with the mystery of Jason Blossom’s murder.

 

* * *

 

 

**September 2016**

**Betty**

**David Bowie I Love You (Since I Was Six) by Jessica Lea Mayfield**

 

Walking into Pop’s, she spots his red hair contrasting with the white vinyl, sprawled in the seat opposite Jughead. Seeing the two of them together, her heart pangs with nostalgia. She yearns to just slip in under Archie’s arm slung along the top of the booth, order a strawberry milkshake, ask Jug about his writing and let him steal her strawberry. What she wouldn’t give to slide back into the easy rapport of their friendship. She swallows hard when she realizes they may never get that back, that simpatico companionship, but she feels pulled towards them nonetheless, all the tethers in her chest centered on the warm red neon glow in that booth.

 

“I’ve never felt whatever it is I’m supposed to feel with Betty.” Archie looks at his hands as if he should be able to conjure those feelings by pure force of will, rubs his palms over his eyes when they fail to manifest.

 

Jughead spies her over Archie’s shoulder, and she has never felt more embarrassed. She ruined this. She asked for too much. Jughead is about to call her over but she shakes her head quickly, pleads silently that he will let this sleeping dog lie just for tonight. He lets her go unknown.  

 

Her eyes roll up to the impassive face of the night sky, the epitome of existential reticence, all the stars disappeared by Riverdale’s light pollution. The few that remain feel so unreachable. She feels childish in her sadly hopeful pink dress, slipping her arms under the white cardigan to cover the strategic cutouts across her waist. Even offering this much of herself, two small patches of bare skin, felt like an exercise in futility.

 

 _You are so perfect_.

 

“I’m sorry, Betty.” He shouldn’t be. She wants to believe this. It doesn’t make it hurt less. Less it wasn’t that he couldn’t feel the same way but that it was her, if only she were a little less perfect. He’s gone and she looks down at her nail-bitten palms, blurring as tears pile in the eyes.

 

 _All boys are like Jason Blossom._ No truer words spoken, Betty thinks as she tumbles out of Chuck Clayton’s car.

 

“You’re like her, right? Betty, you’re like Polly. I can tell.” His grip on her wrist tugging her hand into his lap, and she had half a mind to grab hard and twist, show him just how much she was not like Polly Cooper. She pinched him hard on his thigh instead, used the element of his surprise and pain to yank out of his hold and into the muddy aisles between the cars. She uses the adjacent car as leverage to stand, comes across curious eyes still fogged over by teenage lust peering at her through a steamy backseat window.  

 

“Betty, get back in the car,” Chuck hisses, the heat from his cab at her back.

 

Ignoring him, she weaves through the cars towards the concession stand. She is about to reach for her phone to call her mother when there’s her name again, not _sorry Betty_ , not _be good Betty_ or _let me use you for a first date handy Betty_. Just Betty. He doesn’t ask her what happened. He doesn’t push, just offers the hem of his t-shirt, a space in his inner sanctum with an optimal view of Grace Kelly, and a complimentary box of sugar babies.

 

The semester starts off rocky, but she finds her footing in the Blue and Gold and with him. She was comforted by his sardonicism and the seamless closeness he expressed only towards her. That’s how it felt when it started, natural. Studying his levity in the face of sheer terror, in the face of the worst that could happen, and all the bad things didn’t seem so troubling anymore.

 

She found herself passing up the daily dosage of doctor-sanctioned amphetamines, because when he was close, trying to be close, the static dissolved and all the mysteries in her head just solved themselves. All the strings of thought in her head untangled when he touched her and the answers became clear. She thinks even then she felt it, something she couldn’t yet put a name to but was inevitable nonetheless.

 

She crosses paths with Archie coming out of the principal’s office, glimpses Weatherbee and Sheriff Keller huddled together with whatever fresh piece of evidence Archie handed over. “What were you talking about in there?”

 

She can always read Archie by his hands, which were far more articulate than his mouth. His hands tense at his side grasping for a good excuse until he figures it will come to light eventually. “I was at Sweetwater River over fourth of July weekend. I heard a gunshot, _the_ gunshot,” he confesses.

 

That doesn’t make any sense. “I thought you went on a road trip with Jughead that weekend.”

 

Archie was the worst liar. Playing truth or dare with him growing up was never much fun. He always chose dare. “We cancelled it.” Half-truth. “Jughead had to work.” Lie. He should know how bad a lie. Even if his best friend covered for him, all it would take to ferret out that lie was a quick subversive fact-checking appointment with Jughead under the pretense of something else. She only had to ask Jughead about his summer, the supposed road trip.

 

“What were you doing at Sweetwater River on the fourth of July, Archie?”

  
“Song writing.” Mostly true. “With Vegas.” Lie.

 

“Right.” She lets it go. She will get the truth her own way. “Did you see anything else? Anyone else?”

 

He gives her a clear negative, his expressive hands at a standstill. “Hey, Betty, you know it’s Jughead’s birthday this weekend?”

 

Curve ball.

 

His hit-or-miss intuition actually makes its mark when he realizes she didn’t know. “I thought maybe since you two were spending more time together that he might have told you,” he admits, looking guilty. For telling her without Jughead’s permission or for the fact Jughead didn’t tell her himself, she doesn’t know which.

 

She meets him in the Blue and Gold office to review new evidence, but they don’t get that far. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday, Jug.” She doesn’t mean it to sound so accusatory, but he looks affronted, cornered. 

 

* * *

 

**September 2016**

**Jughead**

**David Bowie I Love You (Since I Was Six) by Brian Jonestown Massacre**

 

“It doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to you,” he explains, hoping she will understand. She gets birthdays with candles and pink frosting and genuine appreciation that she was born. His was always a forced celebration, a happy accident that never felt very happy, joy at being an afterthought that never felt particularly authentic.

 

“It’s your day, Juggie,” she tries.

 

“It’s just a day.” Arbitrary social etiquettes frustrate him, but her disappointment always manages to frustrate him more. “Look, Archie and I go to a double feature every year to ‘celebrate’.” He puts physical quotation marks around the word and she finally smiles. It’s a start. “You want to come?”

 

“Don’t invite me if you don’t really want me there, Jug.” She will not allow herself to be a charity case. He tells her to just come, but she stares at her shoes looking shamed for even bringing it up.

 

He grabs her shoulders afraid she might really start crying. Putting his hands on her, he is still surprised he can, that she lets him. “Fine, I want you there. I really, really want you there, Cooper. I think I might die if you don’t go.” She laughs a little at that, chances a glance at his face searching for sincerity. “It’s my day, right?”

 

The three of them huddle together while waiting in line for tickets at the Bijoux, steaming breath mingling as they commiserate against the impending fall. There will be no Indian summer this year. “It’s one of my most closely guarded secrets,” he admits, side-eying Archie accusatory who shrugs it off into Jughead’s shoulder.

 

She wraps herself around one of his arms, her soft breasts pressed against him, drawing out a warm stirring low in his gut. “I’ll keep your secret.” Just when he starts to think it’s special, their moment, she links her other arm with Archie’s and tugs them both up to the ticket counter. He tries to pay for his ticket, but Archie steals his wallet. Betty with the assist as she blocks Jughead from reaching into Archie’s hoodie pocket, distracts him by twining her body around his arm again and dragging him into the theatre.

 

She sits between them with a tub of popcorn in her lap, shares her cherry coke. He grabs a handful of popcorn, and she leans over to whisper to him in the dark of the theatre, low enough just for him. “I’m happy you happened.” Something her parents must tell her every round of her birthday. Something he’s never heard before. Something no one ever thought to tell him. He cries quietly for the first half of the movie.

 

Living hurts the right way for just a few hours.

 

* * *

 

 

**September 2017**

**Betty**

**All You Want by Dashboard Prophets**

 

“Don’t freak out.” Every time Kevin opens with that line it is a fifty-fifty chance whatever gossip he has to impart will be freak-out worthy, so Betty turns to him just before third period English with practiced composure, searches Kevin’s face for a hint of how worthy. “Chuck Clayton is back.” She can feel the color drain from her face, and that if it weren’t for her perfect mask of makeup, she might match the walls. “Jesus, Betty, breathe.”

 

Her fingers tighten around her backpack straps. She has already reopened the red moons on her palms once this week, didn’t realize until she was washing her hands in the girls’ restroom and the water ran pink. Cursing when she remembered putting her hands on Jug that morning.

 

“Betty, are you going to be okay?” Kevin has one gentlemanly hand on her arm, studying her white knuckles.

 

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Too chirpy. “It’s no big deal.” He looks genuinely worried, but Betty plasters on her best good-girl smile like a piece of armor. “Don’t worry, okay? Thanks for giving me the heads up, Kev. I’ll see you at lunch.” She pats his shoulder affectionately, careful to avoid brushing her palm against his sweater.

 

“I heard you’re dating our resident Billy Loomis now.” Betty rechecks her lip gloss before closing her locker door to face her inescapable albatross. “Yeah, I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground. Do all the Cooper women have shit taste in men?”

 

“If they do, you’re a prime example, Chuck,” she counters, readjusting the books in her arms. “Move.”

 

“I missed you, Betty.”

 

Her fingers cramp around her chemistry and history textbooks. He appears to have worked more on physical enhancement during his exile rather than contrite introspection. He still looks at her like she is a piece of meat while he is nothing but, and wonders if that’s all his life amounts to, his perspective of others, things meant to be conquered. She recalls that night, feeling the same way then as now, that she had denied him his due, that she owed him one good lasting big O.

 

“Move. _Now._ ”

 

Interest ignites with her inflection, the steady green anger in her eyes. “There she is.” He steps forward, crowds her back against the lockers. The warning bell rings, a few stray lollygaggers lingering in the halls. “Do you still want to be a bad girl?”

“You should remember where you are, Chuck.” She banished him once. She can do it again.

 

He ignores her but glances about the empty halls, smirks to himself. His beady eyes slide back. “Does he know about you, the real you?” Almost, she thinks privately. He looks down at the crown on her chest and snorts, like she is just a silly little girl with cartoons embroidered on her sweaters, playacting. She subconsciously shifts her textbooks to cover the patch, guilt quickly swallowed up by outrage. “The dark you. The Betty that I actually think about every night when I’m laying in bed.” Her textbooks thud to the linoleum as her open hand cracks across his cheek, ears ringing and palm stinging. A moment of surprise blooms on his face before the line of his mouth narrows into a sneer.

 

“Mr. Clayton.” Principal Weatherbee stands next to the water fountains, patrolling the halls for tardies. “Don’t you have somewhere to be.” It isn’t a question.

 

“Sorry, Principal Weatherbee, I was just catching up with Betty,” he says, keeping his eyes on her like a predator unblinking. “We were just clearing the air, right, Betty?” He loses their staring contest by picking up her textbooks, arranges them neatly like a gentleman. She feels like she lost, taking her books and darting off to class with the bones in her hand throbbing. She wonders if she left a smear of blood on his cheek.

 

At lunch, she squirms in between Archie and Kevin, knocking Archie’s guitar and interrupting his casual strumming. Archie glances at her. “Oh no, you have that face.”

 

“What face?”

 

“That I-have-a-plan-and-there’s-no-room-for-discussion face.”

 

She shakes her head. “That’s not a thing.”

 

Kevin chimes in, “It’s a thing, your bend-to-my-will-and-little-mermaid-eyes face, cute but devious.”

 

“Face or no face,” she asserts, cutting through the bullshit. “It’s Jughead’s birthday.” Archie nods like it is just another day coming round on the calendar, just how the uncelebratory beanie-wearing downer would prefer. “I was thinking.” Kevin’s interest is piqued, but Archie plays an off-key chord, raises his eyebrows at her. She narrows her eyes at him, barrels forward regardless. “A small low-key surprise party. I think we could all use some celebration.”

 

Kevin nods. “This year has been particularly dark. I’m in!”

 

Archie defends his friend. “Jughead doesn’t like his birthday.” Kevin brushes that one off easily enough. “He’s a lone wolf. Trust me, he won’t like it.”

 

Veronica slides in across from them, sets her purse and coffee on the tabletop. “I heard birthday and party. Who are we celebrating?” Jughead, everyone supplies. “Where and when?” She is already sold.

 

Betty pipes up. “Tonight. Haven’t decided on where yet.”

 

“Betty,” Archie tries one final time, third time’s the charm. “Jughead likes tradition, routine, and his tradition is the Bijoux, double feature, you, me.” He says all this like Betty doesn’t know. “He doesn’t like surprises.”

 

“We’ll still do that. There will just be a little extra,” she argues. Veronica implores Archie to drop the negativity. This will be good for all of them.

 

“It’ll be inner-circle only,” Betty promises, pulling on the redhead’s elbow, craving stability, a dose of normalcy. “Please back me up on this one, Arch. Can’t we have one normal moment for the year where it’s not weird to just celebrate a friend’s birthday? There are so many things I can’t control, but this isn’t one of them. Can’t I just make my boyfriend’s birthday something special without all hell breaking loose?” Good one, jinx.

 

He rolls over, finally. “Okay. My dad’s out of town. We can do it at my house.” Betty beams, tugging on his arm with excitement, thanking him over and over.

 

She sneaks up to wrap her arms around him from behind, her palms running from his stomach to dip her fingertips into the line of his collar, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades. He smells so much like the Andrews house now, too much like Archie sometimes, that she has to bury her nose deeper into his denim jacket to get the rest of him, the elements that make him. “Happy Birthday,” she singsongs as his hands gather hers, twisting around.

 

“How have I never seen this sweater before,” he wonders, his eyes tracing the crown brazen on her chest, her own homemade applique. His hands are curled into her waist possessively. She thought it was a small affectionate touch, the crown stitched into the soft gray cashmere, but now it feels like a brand for the world to see, his brand. There are more private reminders on other parts of her body but this one is blatant evidence. It creates the desired effect. His eyes skirt around the entrance of the Bijoux, spying a small snicket on the side of the building. It’s his day after all, but she dances away from his greedy, grabby hands. _Tonight. Later_.

 

He grabs her hand when she goes to buy the tickets, shows her the pair of untorn stubs from his jacket pocket. “Juggie, it’s your birthday,” she fusses, but he bargains for snacks as recompense.

 

In the theatre, sunk into their seats, Jughead feigns the yawn and stretch to sling his arm along her shoulders, well compensated with a shy laugh. “Just don’t try and feel me up, Jones.”

 

“Baby steps, Cooper.” She studies his face. Yeah, he’s thinking about calling her on her bluff.

 

“I didn’t take you for an American Werewolf kind of girl,” he sighs, gathering her closer.

 

She shimmies down in her seat, the paper cup caving between her fingers as her lips manipulate the candy red straw, her shoulder warm against his. “That’s where you’re wrong, Jughead Jones. I’m all about the _beast within_.”

 

* * *

 

 

**September 2017**

**Jughead**

**Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division**

 

Being unhappy. It’s one of the few things he knows how to do well. He’s had so much practice.  

 

He could see every miserable birthday shrinking in the dancing candlelight on her appled cheeks – his father six sheets to the wind before his mother could bring out the ice cream cake with his name misspelled on top. His parents banging about in their bedroom while slices melted on clearance paper plates that were supposed to be festive, meant for celebration, but at certain points during his childhood the Jones considered them normal dishware. Every begrudging ‘happy birthday’ dissolves in the haunting melody of her lilting voice, and he wants to kiss her, tries not to cry, because with it, with her, comes the immeasurable fear, terror and too much love, that whatever this was would not last, how could he keep someone so perfect. Something so clichéd – how could she love him, how could she keep loving him?

 

 _I wish it were just the two of us._ He just wanted it to stay how it was, natural, nothing forced. Double feature at the Bijoux, a B horror movie and a raunchy college romper. They didn’t stay for the second film, and he thinks now it was because they were coming home to one, a modern day _Animal House_ but worse.

Resentment is the most potent human emotion, the one that births all the worst. He would rather die than resent her but he feels it – shirtless jocks tearing ass through the living room, someone’s lace panties spinning lazily with the ceiling fan, even a buzzed Doiley spinning top forty – resentment breeding an ugly infection in his gut.

 

At some point he realizes he is shouting at her, every insecurity, sticking pins in hers and his at the same time. _You’re the perfect girl next door_. She hates that. He wants it to hurt. Perfect, like nails on a chalkboard, a word that spits into two resentful syllables.

 

“I thought you knew me, Jug.”

 

“Yeah well, I thought you did, too.”

 

He looks for Archie to tell him he’s bouncing. He’ll crash at the trailer. He doesn’t find him. He makes a break for the front door, maneuvering as cleanly as possible through the fray. His hand reaches for the door handle and pulls when another lands just above his face, shoves the door closed. “Where you going, guest of honor?”

 

Payback for Veronica stealing the Vixens. Payback a year in the making for exiling Chuck. Payback for Cheryl’s loneliness, for her family’s ruin. Payback for lost scholarships, prospects, a future. Karma swings back hard. He can taste it, the acid of their resentment mixing with his own.

 

He tunes out most of it, shallow insinuations of twincest, a year-old rumor about Archie’s Asia Argento phase and emergent mommy issues, Veronica’s father’s shady dealing from behind the glass. This will be over soon enough, and at least he isn’t on trial by a jury of their peers, glancing at the lineup of Archie, Veronica, and Betty. Besides, it’s nothing he doesn’t know, hasn’t already speculated on himself, until all of sudden Dilton Doiley chimes in again after a lukewarm quip by Betty in defense of her friends, Doiley’s foul play with guns on the table now. She promised she would never tell anyone about it.

 

Even though Cheryl writes it off as one of Dilton’s many less-than-charming sociopathic idiosyncrasies, Doiley narrows his eyes at Betty, smirks something ugly. “Archie isn’t the only whose been getting a free show over the years.” Jughead’s heart lurches into his throat. He thinks he might throw up.

 

Betty’s brow furrows in consternation, but before her gaze can land on him, Chuck interjects, “Yeah, she’s quite the exhibitionist. Aren’t you, Betty?”

 

He doesn’t know who he wants to punch more. Doiley or Clayton.

 

He tries to steady his pulse, his arms firm across his middle, his fists tight in his denim sherpa. Chuck starts in about that infamous night, what Jughead could only fantasize about, what lengths Betty went through to ruin him. She mentioned it in passing once, but he never asked her about that night. It didn’t stop his imagination running wild. And he hated it, that there was a part of Betty he didn’t know, that Chuck fucking Clayton knew. He shoves his hands in his pockets to keep them from wrapping around Chuck’s thick jock neck. He would never get that far, he knows. Chuck would level him. His fingers slip over the switchblade in his left jacket pocket.

 

Betty looks on the verge of tears, blue-eyed and watery and crumbling. His resentment dissolves in his gut, melts in the acid of his rage. Now he knows and Betty is too afraid to look him in the eye and he wishes Chuck didn’t exist.

 

“But hey, you knew all about this, right, Jughead?” His fist connects with Chuck’s face, of its own accord really. Chuck’s quick with a counter, sends him crashing through the Andrews’ glass coffee table. The wrestling team captain is on top of him, nowhere near finished. And Jug feels the blade handle in his pocket as Chuck’s fist connects with his face again, splitting the skin over his cheekbone. He hears the snick of the blade and slashes wildly. He doesn’t care what he catches. Chuck rolls off him and away from the knife slicing towards him, stands up to get ready for more. Jug finds his feet, brandishes the knife in Chuck’s direction.

 

The crowd doesn’t breathe, but Jughead’s pulse is racing. He cannot seem to get enough breath. He lunges for Chuck, feels arms slide up under his, palms bracing along the back of his head, manipulated quickly into a full Nelson. _NO_ , a feral thought. An animal groan comes out instead as he twists against his best friend, kicking broken glass.

 

“You’re a fucking psychopath,” Chuck shouts, backing away from them quickly, guarding a bleeding hand. Jughead writhes against Archie’s hold, hearing his best friend tell him to _drop the knife, drop the knife, Jug_ , his voice coddling, calm. The switchblade falls onto the pile of broken glass, but Archie holds him for another few breaths, waits for Jughead’s blood to simmer down from its boil.

 

Veronica shouts that the party is over. _Get the hell out before I call the cops_. A bluff. The crowd disperses quickly with the mention of the police, with Chuck mingled in there somewhere.

 

Archie lets him go, a hand still steady on his shoulder. The touch, his steady reassurance, it hurts. He shoves him away.

 

Betty stands next to her seat. She shot right out of it as soon as the knife made an appearance. She’s watching him, no longer near crying, eyes dry and green, studying him. That hurts, too, more. He might as well have stabbed himself.

He stews in the living room alone, his sneakers crunching over broken glass. Archie and Veronica clean up in the kitchen. Veronica walked Betty home, came back after, didn’t say anything to him still standing in the same spot. Maybe she knows how to pick her moment better now.

 

Archie shouts through the hall that he’s going to wrap his cake, put it in the fridge for later, like Jughead didn’t just almost stab Chuck Clayton in a room full of their drunken peers.

 

He shuffles his shoes through the bits of glass. His phone vibrates in his pocket. _I’m sorry_. Shit. Worst fucking birthday ever. This is all wrong. It’s all so wrong.

His hands sift through the blanket of creeping geraniums, finding the ladder and hauling it up. The light is still on in Betty’s room. As soon as the ladder bounces against the sill, he sees her slide up the window. She peeks down at him, reads the question on his face, nods. That’s a good start.

“You were right,” she starts, her hands folded in her lap. “It wasn’t what you wanted. It was what I wanted, and it was selfish of me to push that on you.”

 

“No,” he interjects, placing his hand over hers. “You were trying to do something nice for me, and I don’t know – I just short circuit when things feel too good, when people are nice to me.” _Even you_ , he thinks. _Especially you_. Because he is still worried, terrified he will never be good enough for her.

 

She opens her palms to him, shows him the cuts reopened, fresher. “I do, too, short circuit.”

 

“You told me once that you were scared of me.” It feels like a lifetime ago now. “Was that true or were you just saying that to get rid of me?” It worked at the time. He was scared of himself. He still is.

 

She closes her fingers over the wounds. “I wasn’t scared so much of you but of what I thought I would be capable of doing.”

 

“What did you think you were capable of?”

 

“I did horrible things to Chuck because I thought he deserved it. I hated him. And I didn’t feel bad about it.” She studies the photographs on her vanity mirror, this past year in pictures, everything starting with that horrible summer. The pictures only show the good parts. “Somehow I think this was inevitable. It was always coming. Chuck wouldn’t stay gone forever.” Nothing stays gone forever. Everything gets a return.

 

She looks at him, searches his eyes for that flicker of rage again but only sees simmering contemplation. “Are you okay?” He nods. He will be. He just wants her to be, too. She doesn’t bring up the switchblade. She doesn’t even look afraid of him.

“I did get you a present,” she says after a beat, looks at the clock. “It’s still your birthday.”

 

She hands him a small cardboard box, like something that once housed a ring or a necklace. Inside nestled on a little cloud of cotton stuffing is a white pin with red lettering. _Hell is other people_. “For your beanie,” she elaborates, skimming her fingers along the edge of the knit crown. “Or your backpack or your jacket.” She tucks a stray inky curl back into his beanie, her gaze tracing and imagining where the pin would fit best along his hairline.

 

He picks it up. It looks homemade, makes him smile that she still has a button-making machine or she hunted one down to make it. Somehow he doesn’t put it past her to buy a button-making machine just to make one lonely pin for his crown, but she has always been good at finding new purposes for things. Nothing is single use for Betty Cooper. “Here.” He offers her the button. “You put it on.”

 

He bends his head towards her, his palm resting warm on her thigh. She smiles tenderly, flips the pin out and reaches up to slide it in next to the others, careful not to poke his scalp as she latches the needle under the hook. When it’s done, she presses a chaste kiss to his temple, another to his cheekbone, the corner of his mouth. His fingers curl into her thigh fondly, love on the tip of his tongue until she offers more with another whisper just for him, “I’m so happy you happened.” Again. He falls apart all over again.

 

He kisses her so hard their teeth click. She laughs but he swallows it quickly, sobering her, bracing his palm along the base of her skull to firmly seal their mouths together. He wants to swallow her. Or for her to swallow him. Her fingers reverently trace the constellation of imperfections across his cheek, ending to curl up in the collar of his t-shirt.

 

He gathers her hands in his and opens her palms, presses his lips to the broken parts. “Let me know next time,” he offers, his fingertips gently tracing the red moons. “When she comes out.”

 

“You want to see her?” Dark Betty. His eyes flicker to hers, curious. They haven’t gotten this far in the game. He isn’t sure it is a game right now. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” she whispers, leaning forward so he can smell the cake and beer on her humid breath. He turned down the chance to taste her cake once. A kiss, sweetness of cake and ketchup frosting. “Show me, Juggie.” The thing inside him unfurls, recently fed, stretching out into his limbs.

 

The hall closet door closes. Betty stands up abruptly, like the previous moment was only a daydream, breaking all contact and making his gut roil, his fingers itch. “Shit, my mom.” Footsteps pad closer to her bedroom door, and Betty is glancing back and forth between the sliver of hall light and her open window. Glancing until Jughead’s hands are on her, backing her up into the bathroom even when she protests. “Jug,” she tries, his teeth grazing her lower lip. “She’ll find us.” He toes the bathroom door nearly closed, nearly dark but he can see lamp glow on her face, makes her eyes shine.

 

Her bedroom door opens and she whips around. Perfect. His hands yank her back against his front, her ass pressed against the front of his jeans, momentary relief until she loses her footing and he stumbles back. He finds balance against the bathroom counter, braces his arm along her ribcage while the other unbuttons her jeans, quickly pulling the zipper down. “She’ll hear us,” she murmurs when his fingers slip under the elastic of her panties, three curling over her clit and searching farther south. Her breath hitches, legs splitting apart as he slots his thigh between them, her fingers hesitant on his wrist.

 

“Guess you’ll have to keep your voice down,” he responds quietly, tucking two fingers up inside her, feeling her ribcage expand against his forearm.

 

Her mother starts opening drawers in her bedroom, and Betty tries to bend forward, curling in on herself. He can imagine the embarrassment blushing across her cheeks, the fear of being caught sending a jolt through his hips that makes him buck a little against her ass. He hefts her back with his arm, letting her lean her entire body into his.

 

She grinds her clit against the heel of his hand, the cadence of her rolling hips on his fingers the perfect rhythm against his dick. He can see the confusion developing on Alice Cooper’s face as her daughter fucks herself on his hand, swearing her daughter came home, went to her room, closing the last dresser drawer, the open window, the ladder peeking over the lip of the windowsill innocuous like Hal was just replacing some shingles or cleaning the gutters. Hal doesn’t live here anymore.

 

He adds a third finger when Alice sticks her head out the window and shouts her daughter’s name to the neighborhood. Betty keens and he slaps his hand over her mouth, hears Alice shove the ladder to clatter against their perfectly manicured lawn. He mumbles _love you_ over and over in her ear, his palm hard against her mouth, feels her teeth through her lips. Her mother storms out of the bedroom, pounds down the stairs while he grinds against her ass. He hears the front door slam against the wall behind it, Alice Cooper on a mission to tear apart the Andrews house for her daughter. The tempo quickens, Betty’s fingers digging into his sides to find some stability, one hand bracing the edge of the counter as her hips thrust hard into his hand.  

 

She comes, her body a long taut line laid against his, a hot humid sticky mess against the palms of both hands, and he comes too with his chin hard in the junction of her shoulder, kisses sloppy on her ear. Her next breath shudders against him, her body melting, knees buckling, and he has to force himself to stabilize, hold her up.

 

His phone vibrates in his back pocket and he remembers himself. He just fingered Betty Cooper while her mother was in the other room, without asking, without even closing the door all the way. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

 

Betty tries to catch her breath, peels his palm off her mouth to tell him, “No, Jug, I liked it.” She finds her footing and turns about-face in his arms, her jeans still unbuttoned and shimmied down over her hipbones which press into his. He can feel the mess he made in his pants. “I really liked it.” She licks his bottom lip _, kiss me_. He does. His phone vibrates again, keeps vibrating with a call. Archie.

 

A text lights up the screen. _Mayday_. Alice on her way back over. Betty peeks at his phone and curses, quickly buttoning up her jeans. He opens the bathroom door, sees the ladder bang against the windowsill. Her mother is back in the house, and Jug bolts for the window. Betty’s phone rings on the vanity, her mother’s manic, manicured smile lighting up the screen, the ringtone shrill. Now her mother knows Betty is still in the house.

 

He starts to depart back down the ladder that Archie holds steady for him, but he clips back up quickly to leave her with one last parting thought, one more truth. “You’re my light that never goes out, Betty.” The reference hits home and her face must look like his, like whatever is happening between them, what has been happening the last year is too big for both of them, but he would die before he stops. He would do more than die before he could stop. He can see it on Betty’s face. She would to. She kisses him before he descends down the ladder, abandons the last five steps to leap back onto the lawn.

 

“I love you, Betty Cooper!” he shouts up at her window, every John Hughes-ian cliché in the book.

 

Archie darts back for his house when he hears Alice Cooper raise the downstairs living room window. Jughead feels something thunk against his hip, stares down at a shell pink pump lying in the grass. “Get the hell off my lawn, Jughead Jones!” He must look loopy with love, because Betty does too smiling down at him, her arms draped over the windowsill. He takes the hit, a second shoe skidding off his shoulder, takes his cue as he traces Archie’s path back to the house.

 

* * *

 

 

**September 2017**

**Betty**

**Dr. Glass Session #9**

 

She searched herself in the mirror that night, three hours before her regularly set alarm, stacks of the newly minted _Blue and Gold_ waiting back at the school office, a streak of sanguine red striping across her cheek like war paint. It was in that moment of perfect clarity, wiping away her scarlet indiscretions at her vanity, that she recognized the beast within had come out to play and she may never be able to put it back in its box.

 

She didn’t feel bad about it. That was true. And when she asked Jug to stay away, when she said she was scared of him, she was scared of herself. She was terrified that everything the Black Hood intimated about her was true, what she was capable of doing. Judge, jury, and _de facto_ executioner of the Sugar Man, Chic, her father.

 

Again she felt it watching Jug slash at Chuck, her father inside her, justification, vindication in the swipe of the blade.

 

“How was Jughead’s birthday?”

  
A disaster. “There were a few hiccups.”

 

He wears contacts today. His eyes are green like hers, mood stones like hers but they are always passive green during their sessions. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

She no longer asks if she can talk about something else. She just grabs a vein and keeps going. “Last year I went on a date with this guy from school. It was the beginning of the school year.” When she stopped seeing Dr. Glass. “It was after Archie decided he didn’t want to be with me, and I just wanted something simple, a rebound, a little fun. No strings attached, you know. I wanted to try being this other girl who didn’t plan everything out, every detail. He asked me out so I said yes. I asked him to take me to the drive-in. They – Jughead was playing a Hitchcock marathon. He told me it was for me.” Then it felt so innocuous, a token gesture. In retrospect, she wonders if it was everything, his subtle love letter to her.

 

“But that isn’t the point,” she amends, returning to her original train of thought. “I asked this guy to take me to the drive-in, watch Hitchcock, eat popcorn, maybe even make-out a little, just to know what it was like. And all throughout the movie he kept getting handsy, pulling me close to him, whispering things in my ear. I wanted to watch the movie, _Rear Window_ , one of my favorites, but his hand kept finding its way on my thigh, inching higher like he was testing the waters, and I tried to subtly turn him down, push his hands to safer places. And then he was telling me something about Polly, about how I was like Polly, and pushing my hand towards his – dick. He was insulting my sister and asking me for a hand job at the same time, a total disconnect.

 

“I tried to pull away but his grip, it was painful. I didn’t realize how hard he’d been holding me until the next day and there was a bruise. I got away before he could do anything else.” And there it was again, devaluing what happened because it could have been worse.

 

“A few days later my friend Ethel Muggs comes to me with another story, how he did something similar to her in the library. She starts telling me about this secret playbook that all the football players are in on, lists of signed and scored conquests. It’s sick. And I know plenty of people would say _boys will be boys_ , but to actively prey on girls for credit with your boys.” She quits on that, because it doesn’t matter, her rationale.

 

“I saw an opportunity and took it. To go full dark no stars.” She thinks now, book or no book, she would have done it anyway, regardless of Ethel, of Polly, of all the others. She thinks now she just wanted an excuse.

 

“So I’m guessing your date with this boy was not the end,” he proffers, tending to her vein of thought.

 

“I invited him on a second date.” She can feel _her_ scratching at the surface, an edge carving into her voice. “He was so gullible. I only had to tell him how he was right, that I was denying my basic urges, that I really did want to be a bad girl.” And she did. Just not with him. Or with him but on her own terms. He didn’t like that. “I got him to confess on camera about what he did to me and the other girls. And my methods, they may not have been the soundest.” Jug would have adored that one, her small nod to Coppola. “But, it got the job done. You know, _crack a few eggs to make an omelet_ justification.”

 

“Got the job done?”

 

“I pretty much got him expelled and half the football team suspended.” The pride in her voice seems to disarm him slightly. He wants to ask exactly what she did to get Chuck’s admission of guilt, but if she doesn’t offer it freely he cannot pry. She is learning his game.

 

“You used Dark Betty as a force of good?”

 

“The female student body seemed to think so.” She doesn’t tell him that once she coerced Chuck’s confession, she still stole her pound of flesh afterwards.

 

“Do you think Jughead might nurture some of this darkness in you? He challenges you, right?” He knows she does it on purpose, mentioning Jughead in passing and then altering her train of thought, distracting him with side plots. But, he knows. Jughead is the main attraction.

 

“Sometimes I miss the me then,” she starts, tracing the red waning crescents on her palms. “Soft-spoken, kind, a total pushover.” That summer before sophomore year, before Archie and Grundy, before Jason Blossom and Chuck Clayton, before FP, her father. She had dreams and fantasies, too, a perfect image for how her life should, would pan out. The varsity football captain and the blonde cheerleader, town darlings, childhood best friends. She was suckered into the same spoon-fed fantasies. She knows now it would have been hard, exhausting, propping up Archie and remaining in his shadow, kind and soft-spoken and a total fucking pushover.

 

Sometimes Jughead gives her that same look. She hates being on his pedestal, but there she remains, unfairly. For Jughead though, even his ideal seems off-kilter, un-kosher, a far cry from socially acceptable, because it feels like he admires, even worships the worst parts of her, as much as she has given freely. But he still doesn’t know all of it. Maybe not even half of it. Her mother once gifted her with a rare piece of good advice. _You should trust him, just not with everything_. 


	3. into the black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, first and foremost, rest in peace Luke Perry. That was a blow. He was such a sweetheart and so integral to the series as Fred Andrews. I loved him in the original Buffy as Oliver Pike. I’m seriously wondering what direction the series will go without him. 
> 
> So, this chapter would not have been nearly as ready to post if not for my invaluable betas heartunsettledsoul and imserpentking. In fact, I hated this chapter when I first wrote it. I thought it was a mess. Their assistance helped improve my confidence in it and improved the flow of the chapter overall. And for that, I extend a very heartfelt and appreciative thank you, especially for my wishy-washiness with getting drafts in. My work schedule is screwed and changes on a whim, but these two roll with it.

**June 2016**

**Jughead**

**Dear God by XTC**

 

She leaves on a Sunday.

 

Jellybean is asleep on the pull-out. His dad hadn’t come home. Or he didn’t think his dad had come home.

 

His mom stands by the kitchen window smoking, studying the lots around their trailer, the tin ashtray held in her hand like a spider holds a fly. She taps ash the moment before it falls, one of her practiced moves. She keeps scratching her cheek, the lit cigarette precariously close to her eyelashes. When he gets into the kitchen, he notices her cheekbone looks a little swollen, flushed. She waves it off. “Something bit me in my sleep.”

 

He asks if she wants some coffee, reaching to wash out the pot. “We’re out, sugar.” She balances her cigarette on the ashtray and makes a grab for her purse. He watches her rifle through her bag, finding a crumpled up twenty in the side pocket, tells him to get milk and eggs, too, oh and the good bacon. “I’ll make us breakfast when you get back.”

 

Before he leaves, shrugging his flannel on, she stubs out her half-finished cigarette, braces her hand behind his head and kisses him hard on the cheek, on his beanie. “Be safe.” He smells her smoke and her cheap perfume, two smells in combination he would always associate with her.

 

When he gets back, his mother’s Tercel is gone. He starts the coffee and notices their coats aren’t on the hooks. The pull-out is a couch again. Jellybean’s half of the dresser in the hall is empty. He goes into his parent’s room. The percolator sputters and steams in the kitchen, his mother’s half of the closet nothing but tangled bare wire hangers.

 

It wasn’t ‘be good’ or ‘I love you _’_ or ‘I’m sorry’. With a bruise forming on her cheek, it was ‘be safe’. There is no note, no lingering apology or regretful explanation on the kitchen counter. She said her sorry with food and went on her way. He should have known. This was the only way she could apologize, with food, the good bacon.

 

He eats four eggs, drinks half the carton of milk, and polishes off the entire pound of bacon. He takes the pot of coffee into the living room to watch reruns of Andy Griffith, thinks Opie did okay without a mom.

 

His father tumbles into the trailer a little past noon. FP takes note of the dirty pans in the sink and the carton of milk sitting open on the counter. He saunters into the living room drinking straight from the paper carton asking if he missed breakfast.

 

Jug doesn’t get to say goodbye to Jellybean. He wonders if that is a dig at FP and Jug is just collateral damage.

 

Later that night playing video games with Archie, he rants about Kerouac, suggests a road trip over the fourth of July. He should have enough money saved by then. Maybe he just won’t come back.

 

* * *

 

 

**September 2017**

**Betty**

**Dr. Glass Session #11**

 

“I think now I should have been more surprised.”

 

“About your father?” She nods. “What should have surprised you more?”

 

“He was a great dad growing up, supportive, patient. He never missed a recital or a game. He encouraged my interests, my investigations, Nancy Drew and fixing cars.”

 

People say she looks so much like her mother, but she got her eyes from her dad. She got so much from her dad. And she was, growing up, a daddy’s girl. No one could be her mother’s girl. Her mother was bad cop. Her dad was good cop. So, it fell naturally that both she and Polly were daddy’s girls. But, she always felt a special kinship to her father. She thought she shared something with him that her sister didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t. She had his meadow green eyes. Polly had her mother’s cool blue.

 

Polly was all about ballet and dancing and boys, even early on. Polly was gentle, softer, a crier and a whiner. Betty was rougher. She still had some childish fears growing up, that was true, like being afraid of the dark. But, Betty was fearless in so many other areas that her sister was not. Betty liked getting dirty. She liked roughhousing with the boys instead of crushing on them. She liked fixing cars and crawling under houses to spy on her neighbors, all in the name of the story, the scoop. It was her father who took her to the library over and over again to check out the Nancy Drew Handbook, paid her overdue fines, bought her the newest addition to the series. “He was such a good dad, the best a girl could ask for. But.”

 

She is ashamed to think of it now that she didn’t pick up on it then. It was right under her nose, practically smacking her in the face.

 

“But,” he prompts.

 

“He loved that I was so interested in investigating. He was so proud, and even though Polly was older, he knew I was going to be the one to take over the Register one day. He loved that I had a sense of justice, of finding justice, pursuing the truth. But, there were other things, things I didn’t pick up on until after the fact. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.”

 

“What things?”

 

She wonders if he loves having a patient with a famous serial killer for a father, if he regales the details of their therapy at dinner parties, if his colleagues put two and two together and know it is her. Does he describe the sordid details of that night when she confronted her father, the two shots heard round the world? Does he tell them about the darker aspects of her personality, the parallels between herself and her father?

 

“He was the one that taught me how to break into cars, how to hotwire them. He said it was in case of an emergency.” He told her she could only do it with pre-2000s models where alarms were easier to disconnect, where hotwiring was possible, computers were simpler. “I didn’t really think anything of it. I thought it might come in handy one day, in a real emergency.” This would be a juicy fire burner for him at the next gathering.

 

“Has it?”

 

She lies. “No.” Not a legal emergency anyway.

 

“I was more like him than I knew.”

 

“In what way?”

 

She flashes her palms at him, mostly healed from the last time she carved her nails into them. “He did this, too, growing up. His father used to beat him and he would dig his nails to distract himself. When he found out I did it, too.” A useless, mediocre tally mark in her father’s excuses column.

 

She remembers the day. It was during the Black Hood attacks when he was back living with them. Briefly. Right before she found Chic and brought him home.

 

She was still recovering from the night she had to dig up a grave, almost burying Archie alive at gunpoint, still recovering from everything the Black Hood had forced her to do. He found her in the bathroom to see if she had any linens needing cleaning, the dirty towels from the night before, saw her hands, scrubbing dirt out of the red moons. His voice when he told her about his own father, the kind of man he was, showing her the scars nearly faded on his own palms.

 

“I never wanted to be that kind of father, Betty,” he told her, his tone wavering. “And yet.” He held her hands inside his and she felt so safe, small again and secure in her father’s hands. “We’re both gentle people by nature, Betty, I think. It’s the world that disappoints us, twists us, makes us react in ways that are unhealthy for us. We do this to ourselves so we don’t do it to others.”

 

Her father internalized his hate for so long that his implosion sucked the rest of Riverdale in with him.

 

Betty swallows back tears. She hasn’t cried in front of Dr. Glass since the beginning of summer. Despair bitter on the back of her tongue to think that was the last profound moment she shared with her father, a kinship in their internalized deep-seated anger, like she finally had an undoubting answer for her rage and its origins.

 

And then, not a month later, all the questions sprung from that moment roiling in her head and how yes, even then when the truth came out, she understood. She wasn’t surprised. She could understand how her father – the gentlest man she knew growing up, so honorable and steadfast in pursuit of the truth, the tempered hand on her mother’s shoulder, on her own – how this man who had internalized his hate since childhood, born every transgression with a practiced numbness, could finally say enough. That when the world decided it didn’t want to be better, didn’t care if it did better, that maybe it was time for him to take matters into his own hands again by whatever means necessary. She could understand his motivations at the same time she could reject his vigilante dogma.

 

She wonders if she can still love her father or the idea her younger self still harbors about him, and deny her own tendencies towards rage.

 

The obligatory question comes with her previous divulgence.  “Did your father ever discipline you, physically?” He phrases it so carefully.

 

She smiles to herself because she likes being able to predict his questions. “Not once. He never even spanked me.”

 

* * *

 

**July 2016**

**Jughead**

**Only in Dreams by Weezer**

 

It is one of Sean Penn’s breakout roles, he reminds himself, showcasing his range for what it’s worth. Even if it is still a raunchy teen eighties rom com, it has a black comedy feel to it and it is a cult classic, he’ll admit. It’s why he agreed to this eighties teen movie fest when the manager suggested it. He asked if he could pick the films, but the manager no-goed _Diner_. “It’s too obscure for the times, Jughead.” It’s still a classic.

 

When Jug asked if he could include _Heathers_ or _The Outsiders_ , the manager urged Jug to ‘keep it light, buddy.’

 

So, he plays the expected. Nearly all John Hughes, but _Fast Times_ breaks up the fluffy monotonous predictability. There is a darker edge to it despite being a comedy, some commentary on materialism and consumerism resulting in culturally imposed ambivalence and disaffection, the need for instant gratification making it difficult for the characters to form lasting and meaningful relationships. He runs his gaze over the crowd, mostly his peers. Can they even see that?

 

The projection booth is air conditioned to protect the film. This place is his escape. It is one of the reasons he hides out here sometimes instead of sleeping at home.

 

The pull out isn’t the same without Jellybean. He misses her. He tries to look on the bright side of having the bed to himself. His little sister is an ‘active’ sleeper. At least he wouldn’t have to endure her tendency towards sleeping sideways or smacking him in the face in her sleep. But somehow he can’t sleep without the extra presence. It is too quiet in the trailer now. He misses her more than he misses his mother.  

 

His phone dings with a notification, a social media post from Betty, a photo of her smiling and lined up with a bunch of people at a book signing. There is no hint of loneliness in her eyes.

 

He thinks about liking the post, but then flips through his text messages instead, scrolls to the last one Archie sent him two days ago. _Sorry, I have to cancel the trip. My dad got me a ticket to Chicago to spend the fourth of July with my mom. It’s a surprise. Rain check, bro?_ Surprisingly wordy for Archie. It’s a lie. This is the third time he has flaked on Jug in the last two weeks. He called the drive-in manager and said he could work the weekend after all.

 

He tosses his phone on the table behind him, rocks in the chair to make the casters squeak. The iconic _Fast Times_ scene unfolds on the big screen, Judge Reinhold jacking off to his fantasies about Phoebe Cates in that red bikini. It is only comical fodder, he thinks, sure to get plenty of laughs, but it is the most memorable scene in the movie, the one people recall when they think of _Fast Times_. Jug remembers the entertaining but nuanced interactions between Mr. Hand and Spicoli better than the shallow exchanges between the vast majority of the characters. In his opinion, Mr. Hand and Spicoli were the only real characters in the whole movie.

 

Cates unhooks the front clasp of her bikini before reaching for Reinhold. Betty has a two piece like that, opens from the front. He doesn’t think he will get to see it this summer.

 

Jughead’s eyes flicker over to his phone. He leans over, nearly tipping the chair to reach it, his fingers fumbling over the hard case. His thumb swipes to unlock the phone, searches for the photos app. He knows he has a photo of it, the last time he saw Betty in that bathing suit, the last time they all went together to the Sweetwater swimming hole.

 

It was her first two piece. Her mother finally caved and let her buy one. Cherry bombshell top like something Cheryl Blossom would wear, but on her it made him crave a milkshake, vanilla with extra maraschino cherries. It was the fourth of July before their freshman year, and her swimsuit was red and white. She wore a blue handkerchief Rosie the Riveter style to complete the All-American look, the perfect girl next door.

 

Archie propped his phone on a low hanging branch, and they posed on the rock overlooking the swimming hole. Betty between the boys, tan from junior lifeguard training, filling out from her awkward duckling stage, a stage he adored as much as the next one, the seemingly more mature one that necessitated a bikini in her opinion. Jughead had the worst farmer’s tan from falling asleep in the park waiting for Archie and Betty to finish training at the pool, a Casper except for his dark limbs. Archie’s shoulders and cheeks were sunburned, a pasty pale redhead three inches shorter than Jughead. He is nearly Jughead’s height now.

 

Betty’s arms are draped across the shoulders of the boys. Archie grins into the camera with his eyes pinched from the sunlight, one hand up with a peace sign, his other arm slung casually along her lower back but his hand barely grips her high on the waist. Her hand was curled around the top of Jug’s head to muss up his beanie, her fingers and the beanie covering up half his face. ‘You can’t swim with that thing on, Juggie!’ The photo was taken in the middle of the struggle, and as Jughead tried to wrestle his beanie back, he ended up pressing half his torso to hers, the soft slope of her naked stomach pressed to his, hipbone hard against his own, her breasts to his chest and so little between them. He got so turned on that he abandoned his beanie and launched himself back off the rock into the swimming hole.

 

Betty has been gone nearly a month now.

 

He massages himself through his jeans, stares down at the grainy photo. After a quick check to make sure the projector is running smoothly, he unbuttons his jeans, shimmies them down his thighs just enough with his boxers to pull his dick out.

 

Later that day at the Sweetwater, he swam back over to where Betty was sitting on the edge of the rock, hauling himself up to take a seat next to her. She was wringing his beanie in her hands, reading the pins. ‘I didn’t know you change them out. They always look the same from far away,’ she noted, pointing at one of the buttons on his crown. He told her he did it on purpose to see if people would notice. They never did. He knew it was a bad habit, testing people and expecting them to fail, both disappointed and vindicated when they did.

 

She reached up and slicked back his damp hair. He almost flinched from the blunt familiarity of the gesture. ‘I like your hair, Jug,’ she said offhand, then suddenly pulled her hand away quickly as if realizing she had crossed some invisible boundary without his permission. ‘I mean, I like your beanie, too. It’s iconic.’ She handed it back to him. ‘It’s you. Even if you want to swim with it on.’

 

His eyes trace over her laughing face in the photo, the candid happiness crinkling around her eyes and dimpling her cheeks. He remembers her bare thighs pressed to his while Archie did handstands by himself on the other end of the swimming hole. He could see down her cleavage from that angle when she moved to run her hand through his hair. What if he had just kissed her then without thinking about it?

 

In the photo, his gaze slides down over her shoulders, the front clasp of her bikini top to her naked stomach. He wanted to slip his hand across that soft swell on her lower belly and up over her hipbone, guide her body to angle towards his so he could kiss her, starting at her jawline, working up towards that glossed mouth. Even in that muggy heat, sweat beading on her forehead and her upper lip, she looked irresistible to him. She made his mind go fuzzy with her proximity, her nails grazing lightly along his scalp.

 

His fantasy runs into his reality, her hand dropping from his hair when he kisses her. There is no Archie flipping on the other side of the swimming hole. _Betty, I’m – I,_ he tries to get out, but she quiets him, tells him _yeah, she knows._

 

 _Can I touch you, Juggie?_ It’s his fantasy. He’s imagined enough scenarios of him admitting his feelings, of her reciprocating. He can bypass all that for the moment. Her curious fingers are playing along the top of his swim trunks, ghosting along the dusting of hair under his navel. He nods, swallowing, and her eyes follow the bob of his Adam’s apple.

 

He helps her untie the drawstring so she can get her hand under his trunks. Her warm palm folds over his dick, thumb sliding up over the head. He exhales shakily, his eyes floating closed as her hand works over him. _Juggie, do you want me?_

 

 _I want you,_ he whispers, pressing his lips to her temple when her grip tightens, picking up the pace. _I love you._ When he opens his eyes, her sea glass gaze is on him, studying him, her lips slightly parted.

 

She reaches for his hand, drags it towards her swimsuit bottom, the juncture between her thighs. Her hand strokes him faster, her mouth humid hot against his ear. _I want you to touch me, Juggie._ His hips jerk up into his hands like a surprise, like he’s been gut punched, breathless when he comes as fantasy-her coaxes him to slip his fingers under the elastic of her bikini bottom. His mind never lets him get farther than that.

 

The screen of his phone has gone dark. Fantasy Betty fades away as he looks down, come sprayed across the bridge and thighs of his jeans. “You’re a fucking idiot, Jones,” he mutters to himself.

 

He checks the projector, needs to change the reel. He tucks himself back in his boxers and buttons his jeans, scrambling to flip the projector over to the other reel before the current one runs out. With his job duties satisfied, he leaves the projection booth for the men’s bathroom. If he skirts around the back of the projection booth and sticks to the darker edges of the buildings, he can avoid as many people as possible.

 

“I’m taking my sister to the river that morning, but I’ll be by in the afternoon. Don’t try and change plans on me again, FP.”

 

Jug peeks around the corner, sees Jason Blossom without his iconic letterman jacket for once and wearing a sky blue Izod polo with his collar popped. Jughead recalls the manager adding that to the flyer, eighties chic. _Dress for the occasion!_ No doubt Cheryl dressed her brother for the evening.

 

His father looks hot in his leather jacket, yet he’s smoking a cigarette. “What are you gonna do? Tattle on me to daddy?” FP looks worse than the last time Jug saw him – a week ago at the last showing. His father hasn’t come home in two weeks.

 

Jason smirks like FP is funny but stupid. “You’re not afraid of me, FP, I get that.” He checks the time on his phone. His sister has to be wondering where he is by now. “But you should be,” he says, still looking at his phone, maybe a message from Cheryl. “I’m still a Blossom. You’re still a Serpent. You should know your place.”

 

“You gonna do it yourself then or you gonna get daddy to do your dirty work?” It is then Jug knows his dad is drunk. Half the words are slurred, and he has no filter.

 

“No, I’ll hit you in the last soft spot you have,” he says, and Jug wonders what the hell he is talking about. “And I’ll do it myself.” Jason pockets his phone and walks off towards the concession stand.

 

Jughead makes it to the men’s bathroom without being noticed. It’s empty, thank goodness. He pulls out a wad of paper towels from the dispenser and wets them down in the sink before dabbing at the stains on his jeans. ‘Dab, don’t rub,’ he thinks to himself. In the end, he rubs anyway.

 

“Hey, Jonesy.” Shit. It’s his jock voice, his I’m-going-to-humiliate-you-or-beat-the-shit-out-of-you-or-both voice.

 

Jughead tosses the soggy paper towels into the trash, readjusts his beanie in the mirror before turning around to face the popped collar and khaki-wearing jag. Jesus, his life is a John Hughes movie.

 

Jason shoves his beanie off. “Little too hot for this isn’t it, _Some Kind of Wonderful_?” Something tells him he is not Keith Nelson in this scenario. He resists the urge to pick his beanie up off the men’s restroom floor.

 

Jason looks him over, searching for some other perceived imperfection to latch onto. He spots the wet spot on the front of Jughead’s jeans, and Jug watches that ginger brow raise up, a grin splitting his face, a derisive laugh spilling out that the redhead nearly chokes on. “Holy shit, Jones, did you piss yourself?” He waits a beat before he comes to another conclusion. “Or no? Were you jerking off? Did you have a little accident, Jonesy? Jacking it in the projection booth, that’s fucking disgusting. Or were you doing it in here, watching guys piss? Fucking creep.”

 

“I spilled soda on my jeans,” he tries lamely. He doesn’t know why he bothers with some trumped up excuse. It ends the same way regardless. Jason gives a pointed look at his jeans, and when Jug looks down, he notices he missed a spot.

 

Jason’s features smooth back to that eerie, placid porcelain. “You’re so pathetic, Jones.”

 

“And?”

 

“And,” he trails, glancing around the empty bathroom, no pairs of feet under the stall doors. “And I’m glad I ran into you.”

 

 _Fuck_. Jughead stares up at the bathroom ceiling to keep the blood from running down his chin. It runs down the back of his throat instead, iron bitter and metallic on the back of his tongue. He pinches the bridge of his nose and dips his head forward into the sink, exhales quick through his nose to shoot thick globs of blood and phlegm into the dinged porcelain. He should not have done that. The bleeding gets worse. “Goddamnit.” He walks over to one of the stalls, steals a whole roll of toilet paper to take with him back to the projection booth. Okay, his life is not as fluffy as a John Hughesian narrative, he thinks.

 

His hand wrapped up in a third of the roll of toilet paper and pressed to his face, he passes the group of Serpents loitering in the back lot. His father’s head bobs up as he passes, shifting to sit a little straighter in his cheap lawn chair when he sees the bloody toilet paper pressed to his son’s face. “Hey, Jug.” He flips his father the bird and clips up into the imagined safety of the projection booth.

 

* * *

 

**October 2016**

**Jughead**

**Kingdom of Lies by The Folk Implosion**

 

He tries to focus long enough to finish his latest column, another update on the Jason Blossom murder. Betty expects a polished draft tomorrow at their morning meeting, but his stomach cramps around nothing. He stifles his appetite with caffeine because he cannot afford anything more than coffee. Pop’s good graces must be wearing thin, but after his fourth cup, Pop waddles over, portly but soft-footed, and slides him a burger on the house. “Someone ordered it but left,” he lies kindly. If Jughead could choose Riverdale’s mascot and town hero, it would be Pop Tate.

 

His breath fogs the glass window. It’s too cold to sleep at the drive-in, and he isn’t sure where to go yet. He wonders if they heat the school after hours. There would always be a hot shower available. He could raid the cafeteria, which might beat his current steady diet of expired candy and stale popcorn.

 

His phone dings with a text. It’s Betty. _How is the article coming along?_ His editor is a hard-assed taskmaster. It is ten o’clock at night and she still finds time to ride him in preparation for their seven A.M. meeting. He loves her.

 

 _500 words, right._ He does it to tease her.

 

 _I’ve spaced you for 1000, Jug._ No nonsense. She wants it in writing, so when she gets his affirmative, she can show proof.

 

_I could’ve sworn it was 500._

_Please don’t make me redo the layout, Jug._ He’s already seen her revamp it seven times in the last three days. _You promised 1000_. Did he?

 

_You’re going to cut 200 anyway._

 

 _I’m going to cut it to fit. Starting with more and going down is better instead of adding filler_. Filler is her tactful way of saying useless bullshit. Jug likes to embellish. Betty argues gently it is a newspaper. Journalism is supposed to be straight-cut, to the point, in her opinion. _1000._ Deal or no deal.

 

Appearing soft, pink, and withdrawn, she persuades with more sugar until she is forced to use spice, and even then it comes as a last resort. Even then, it comes with blood on her hands, because yes, he knows about the nail marks on her palms.

 

But she can bite back. Chuck Clayton got the switch. Jug wonders if he would enjoy it. He folds. His response is equally terse. _1000_. He wonders if she could persuade him to eat dirt. _You keep me honest, Cooper._

 

She sends him a thumbs up and a smiley. A few moments later his phone dings with a thank you. She is spun sugar again.

 

* * *

 

 

He hangs out at the Wyrm sometimes to play arcade games. He spent most of the summer avoiding the bar, but since school started and it is getting too cold to hang around in more open venues, he returns to loitering at the Wyrm.

 

Sweet Pea, one of the newer recruits, shoulders into him with his newly won leather jacket. The leather is still stiff, squeaks when he moves like he wants Jug to hear it. “I beat your high score.”

 

“Yeah?” Jug takes a small step to the side. He can smell the combination of unwashed grease and pomade in Sweet Pea’s hair. He shouldn’t judge, though. His clothes will be standing soon if he doesn’t visit the laundromat. He should save his quarters. “Five bucks that doesn’t last the week.” He could use the extra five bucks for laundry. “Hell, the night.” He’s halfway there already as he finishes another level.

 

Five bucks richer, he goes downstairs to check on his dad.

 

“Do you think I’m stupid, FP?” Jug can’t see who it is, but he knows the voice. He presses himself to the wall by the chest freezer.

 

“No, and I like living, Cliff. Why would I put myself in a position to piss you off? Jason never showed, and you’ve got more enemies than the Serpents. What are your people saying?” His dad, as good a liar as Clifford Blossom.

 

Clifford clicks his tongue. “One of my informants thinks Hiram Lodge might be involved.”

 

“He’s in prison.” He wonders if his dad plays dumb on purpose to throw off people like Clifford Blossom.

 

Blossom laughs like FP is too thick for his own good. “Plenty of business can be done from behind bars, FP. Maybe you’ll learn that someday.” A not-so-subtle threat.

 

“I’ve never steered you wrong before,” his father argues.

 

“No,” Clifford agrees. “At least you’re an honest criminal. You’ll keep your ear to the ground.” It’s not a request.

 

“Yeah, of course. I’ll ask around.”

 

Jughead pulls his feet closer towards him like the wicked witch under the house as Clifford Blossom passes, clipping back up the steps to the bar’s back entrance.

 

He doesn’t avoid his father, though, when FP comes rounding the corner on him. His dad’s hands are on him right quick, yanking him out of the storage room, putting distance between him and the freezer. “I told you to stay away for this exact reason, Jug,” he whispers furiously, glancing at the stairs in case Clifford comes back. “Don’t give him an excuse.”

 

“You didn’t specify places,” he tries, regrets it.

 

His father’s expression darkens. “This is not the time to be smart with me, boy.”

 

“I need to borrow some money.” His excuse for being there. It is nearly always true, but he could get by on what he has in his pockets right now. He’ll ask anyway to get his dad off his back and maybe have something to get through next week.

 

His father lets his jacket go, and Jug realizes he had him on his tiptoes. “Yeah, okay.” His father starts rustling through his pockets, his jeans empty, moves to his leather jacket. Jug sees flashes of the visceral red lining. No one else’s jacket has that lining. FP finds a ten and hands it to Jug, who mumbles thanks.

 

“Where you staying right now?” Still at the drive-in, unfortunately. FP comments it must be fucking freezing. It is. “What are you gonna do when the drive-in closes for the season, Jug?”

 

He shuffles around his dad towards the stairs, stuffing the ten with the crumpled five. “I’ll figure it out, dad. I always do.”

 

* * *

 

 

He makes excuses to be closer to her. Straightening her collar, picking lint out of her ponytail, her sweater. Anything to get a closer study. He takes a seat on the desk edge watching her finalize the layout. “Hey there, pretty in pink.” Betty perks up when he flips her ponytail. He observes how it maintains its shape, springing back into place without a single flyaway.

 

“Are you two like together?”

 

This is Veronica Lodge, of the Park Avenue Lodges, formerly the Riverdale Lodges. In the past week, she has somehow become a permanent fixture at their lunch table. Kevin adores her, but Jug suspects he is only attaching himself to Veronica to scrounge for fodder to fill his gossip column. He can already tell Archie is low key crushing on her, despite his ongoing affair with the music teacher.

 

And Betty, well, he isn’t sure if Betty likes Veronica, at least in a genuine sense. Betty, the people pleaser, doesn’t handle social confrontation well, and a bulldozer like Veronica might be out of her wheelhouse. Maybe she is still testing the waters with Veronica. He thinks she might just be trying to get along for the gang’s sake since Veronica doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

 

And Jug, he knew right out of the starting gate that he would butt heads with a girl like Veronica Lodge. He had hoped Cheryl Blossom would adopt her, but Veronica might have proved too formidable for the mourning redhead whose social status was precarious at the moment, her tale about the fourth of July under scrutiny.

 

There is a lack of tact, finesse in how he approaches people. Most find it abrasive. Betty tells him a strong offense is always a good defense. Veronica asks whether his mother ever told him if he didn’t have anything nice to say, he shouldn’t say anything at all. He countered with the little inconvenient factoid of his mother abandoning him and that shut her right up. Betty gave him a chastising look telling him this was a perfect opportunity to practice. Veronica tolerated Jughead for Betty. He knew that. He could try a little harder.

 

Veronica motions her hand between Jug and Betty, waiting for an answer. He can tell she has been ruminating on it for the last week. Even Archie has picked up on it, on them.

 

“We’re friends,” Betty affirms like it’s so simple. Her response is practiced and level, and it is then he knows she has already been interrogated by Kevin about it.  

 

Veronica nods like she doesn’t really believe it.

 

Betty changes the subject. “Can we help you with something?”

 

Veronica’s gaze catches on the expanding corkboards. They commandeered a second one from one of the storage closets, coincidentally the one Jughead has taken up residence in. It freed up a lot of space. “So are you two like true-crime detectives? This is quite the --” She searches for the right name for it and Jughead fills her in with _murder board_.

 

Betty smiles tight and tilts her head away from Jug. His tact has failed him, but Veronica turns towards them with admiration. “Cooper and Jones. Now that’s a cop drama I’d watch.” Jughead actually laughs at that one.

 

“Did you want to join the _Blue and Gold_?” Betty offers, fielding for the real reason Veronica is showing her face.

 

Veronica, predictably, scrunches up her nose like the thought never occurred to her, shaking her head no, much to Jughead’s relief. He is already bartering for Betty time against the Vixens, Archie’s music, Kevin’s banter, and now Veronica’s neediness as the new girl in school.

 

“I wanted to ask you about Archie.” Betty turns in her seat towards that, her shoulder pushing into Jughead’s knee. “Is he available, that gorgeous ginger stallion? I’ve had every flavor of boy but orange.”

 

Jughead blanches. Betty blushes.

 

Jughead waits for Betty to take point. Girls have rules about stuff like that. He wonders if that extends to guys. Would he have to ask Archie if he wanted to date Betty? _Whoa._

 

Betty takes a deep breath, debating whether she should illuminate Veronica on her non-past with Archie. “I don’t think he is dating anyone right now.” To Betty’s knowledge.

 

At lunch, Kevin regales them with the story about Archie rebuffing Veronica’s advances. “He was so chivalrous about it, way more thoughtful than I thought he could be. Plus, can you imagine Archie and Veronica? She is way too high maintenance for him.”

 

Betty seems to be mulling it over. Jug can see the strings of thought tangling in her head, staring unblinkingly at a bare patch in the grass. He pushes his shoulder into hers and, even though Kevin is still talking, assures her, “You’re not high maintenance.”

 

Kevin picks it up in stride. “I think Archie likes things to be easy, Betty. And maybe your friendship is the right kind of easy for him.”

 

Jughead snorts. Archie does like things easy, but sometimes he is too stupid to find easy. If anyone was a high maintenance lay, it was Ms. Grundy. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Archie just goes after the first girl to show him interest, and he wonders when (not if) his relationship with Grundy implodes if Archie will freely latch onto the next girl swooning in his direction.

 

“Archie’s trying to do the right thing by you especially, Betty,” Jughead tells her, a reassurance without any basis in fact. He tries to imply that it isn’t because Archie has feelings for Betty, that it is probably because of her budding friendship with Veronica, but he knows it is because Archie is still fucking Grundy.

 

In the long run, it doesn’t matter. Veronica finds out from Kevin about Betty’s past affections for Archie and immediately calls off the cavalry. Someone beats the dead horse and affections run right dry when Hermione Lodge starts an affair with Fred Andrews. After that, the relationship between Veronica and Archie becomes tenuous at best.

 

* * *

 

 

Betty comes back from her fact-finding mission with Dilton Doiley and his adventure scouts glowing with the news. This time she sits on the desk edge next to him, her warm thigh so close to his shoulder. She wears a cashmere pink sweater with a studded collar, persuasively pink with just a little spice, and his fingers itch to trace just under the hem. It’s so close to him. He closes his laptop and leans back in his chair, folding his arms, putting some distance between them. “You look like the cat that ate the canary.”

 

“I found out who shot the gun on July fourth.”

 

Crap. He already knows it was Dilton Doiley. At least the one who shot the gun by Sweetwater River.

 

“Dilton Doiley.”

 

His feigned surprise is a second too late, and Betty gives him a queer look.

 

He follows up his piss-poor response with a lame, “Really, how did you find out?”

 

“Dilton wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details, but I got a hold of one of his scouts. I barely did anything and the kid folded,” Betty explains. She is so sweet most of the time that he has to remind himself of what she did to Chuck Clayton and half the football team. “I told Dilton either he comes clean to us or I go to Sheriff Keller. So, we’ll see. It’s his move.”

 

He should’ve known Doiley was always the better chess player.

 

Later that night, Jughead missteps. He should have just gone straight back to the janitor’s closet. It was too cold for the treehouse anyway, but he hadn’t held a ‘study’ session in over a week. He should not have underestimated Dilton Doiley. On the last step nailed into the tree trunk, he comes face to face with the evil nihilistic adventure scout from hell. Doiley doesn’t say anything. Jughead feels all the blood drain into his hands and feet, fight or flight bleeding into his limbs. Doiley glances at Betty’s dark window, back to Jughead, turns and walks away. Jughead thinks he might throw up.

 

Jug shows up early for their meeting in the _Blue and Gold_ office, needs some time to polish his column on Dilton Doiley and the fourth of July gunshot. He doesn’t want to print it.

 

“Call off your harpy, Jones.”

 

Jughead was expecting, dreading this confrontation. He slides his laptop back into his messenger bag, doesn’t want to tempt Doiley into making a grab for it. All of his work is backed up on a server anyway, but the laptop is the most expensive thing he owns. “Or what, Doiley?”

 

Doiley breaks the threshold into the _Blue and Gold_ , closes the door behind him. “You’re putting on a pretty good act, Jones.” He sees one of Betty’s cardigans draped on a desk chair, runs his fingers casually over the cashmere, his eyes flickering to Jughead with another dare, waiting for Jughead to flinch.

 

Jughead imagines breaking every finger that makes contact with her. “You want to see what happens when I drop it?”

 

Betty comes through the office door, and Doiley’s hand leaves the sweater like he’s been burned. “Dilton, come to confess?” She pulls a chair out for him, sets it next to the murder board like it is an interrogation.

 

Doiley eyes the chair, the murder board, Jughead leaning against the desk with his arms tight across his chest. Doiley doesn’t sit, just grips the seatback and stares between the two of them. Betty places a steno pad and a recorder in front of her, purple ballpoint poised over the first line. She presses record and prompts Doiley with her pen.

 

Doiley’s face betrays nothing. Jughead has no idea which way this is going to go. He cannot turn around and face Betty. His knuckles are white around his elbows, and his face must be equally as pale. Betty would read it in an instant.

 

“So I shot the gun on the fourth of July, but I didn’t shoot Jason Blossom.” Doiley gives Jughead a pointed look, waiting for him to corroborate or interject. “I’m asking that you don’t print that. If something like this got out, it would ruin me. They would take scouts from me.” He asks nicely, politely, tamps down on the desperation he must be feeling. “What if I had something better?”

 

Betty opens her mouth to say something, but Jug cuts her off. “Something better?” He can see it now, plastered across the front page of tomorrow’s _Blue and Gold:_ ‘Jughead Jones confirmed as a modern-day John Hinckley Jr.’

 

“Yeah,” Doiley says, a challenge in his voice. “I saw Ms. Grundy’s car by Sweetwater River on July fourth.” A moment of relief. Who knew he’d be able to count on some half-baked loyalty from Doiley. But then the implications set in. In Jughead’s mind – _fuck._ He stands up, about to turn to Betty. He hears her press the stop button. No, he can make this work. This is better.

 

* * *

 

 

**September 2017**

**Betty**

**Special Death by Mirah**

 

She tests out the first step, a wooden slat nailed into the trunk. It is sturdy even after all these years, but when she leans closer towards the other steps, she sees several newer nails with the older ones. Someone has been taking care of it. There is a chipped face in the bark under one of the slats showing someone accidentally kicked it off and replaced the entire step. Recently.

 

Fred started building the treehouse as a present for Archie’s eighth birthday. FP helped and the boys assisted with ferrying supplies from the garage, fetching hammers and nails. When Betty insisted she be included, her own father stepped up to help with the roof, the final part. She learned how to steady a ladder, hammer a nail, the difference between a flat-head and a Phillips. During the build, Archie and Jughead often got distracted by some other juvenile pursuit, capturing bees in old mason jars or devolving into acorn wars. But, Betty wanted to see the process. She wanted to see the house come together, the place they could call their own.

 

When her father saw how good she was with the tools, how focused she was for an eight-year-old, he started asking her to help with his Mustang restoration. For her efforts, he rewarded her, included her in a place he never invited her sister, her mother. And she felt so special.

 

This treehouse started it all. She would prompt Archie and Jughead into investigative journeys, hosting stakeouts and planning secret missions to gather neighborhood intel. Stakeouts were the most fun.

 

In the summertime, they held sleepovers in the treehouse, sprawling out on a heap of sleeping bags with pillows stolen from the Andrews and Cooper houses. Betty would bring homemade cookies and Archie would load them up with chips and crackers and soda.

 

Polly didn’t like being outdoors. She always hosted her sleepovers in the Cooper house. And sometimes Betty would call the boys over for a sleepover to spy on her sister, pretending they were investigating some top-secret meeting of evil powers, hunched next to the treehouse window with her binoculars perched on the edge, trading places with Jughead to take watch.

 

Archie was never into her investigations as much as Jughead, but Archie never complained about them. He never argued that it was his treehouse and he never excluded her for being a girl. It was always their treehouse.

 

They used to store snacks and trinkets up here, but it is empty now. She didn’t expect that. She thought he might hide something up here. Maybe she is wrong. Maybe he just sleeps here sometimes when he needs space from Archie. But, he has the trailer for that. Or the Andrews garage. But, if he slept here regularly, wouldn’t there be evidence of that.

 

She sits where she thinks he would, leaning back against the wall of the treehouse. It feels so much smaller now. She used to have to get up on her knees to look through the window, but now she can sit back with a clear view. If she cants herself to the right, she can see a piece of Archie’s bedroom, if the light is on or off. If she centers herself, she gets a full frontal view of her house, her bedroom, Polly’s next door. If she kneels, she can see her entire living room. It is a great vantage point, his vantage point.

 

This doesn’t mean anything. It is only speculation. There is no evidence, she repeats to herself. You cannot convict without clear evidence, she reminds herself. Dilton must have meant something else.

 

Her fingers catch on a bit of unevenness in the wood. It must be moldering from years of neglect, but the edges are smooth. She looks down and sees the beginnings of the first crown point under her index finger. The same crown he carved on the front of his motorcycle helmet when he was twelve and FP took him out the first time. The same one he drew absentmindedly in the margins of his notes during English, got caught tagging during sophomore year. The same crown she stitched on the front of her sweater. His crown and their initials etched inside, immortalized in the wood.

 

She wonders when he made it. It isn’t recent.

 

* * *

 

 

**October 2016**

**Betty**

**Undertow by Warpaint**

 

Betty slips the thin slat of metal into the small space between the car door panel and the window to catch the latching mechanism and pop the knob up. “Thank God she drives a car that’s--” She pauses as the door unlocks and smiles at Jug. “--Old.” She tucks the tool into her duffle and pulls the door open, unlocking the car so Jughead can slide into the passenger seat.

 

“You’re full of surprises, Cooper,” he says with admiration, dropping the glove compartment door to rifle through its contents – registration, car insurance, nothing insightful. “What are we even looking for?”

 

She fidgets around in the driver’s seat, flipping the visor down, checking the side door compartments, before reaching into the backseat. “Anything that proves Grundy isn’t as clean as she says she is.” Her fingers trip over something heavy, substantial, closing over the handle to a locked cash box like the one she keeps under her bed.

 

Jughead continues to rifle through the center console cassettes when she places the cash box in her lap like it is the last birthday present off the table. He stops sifting, judging through Grundy’s music to watch Betty search her ponytail for a spare bobby pin. She keeps them on hand for just such an occasion. He seems skeptical when she jiggles the pin inside another locking mechanism, slightly simpler than the car door, feeling the lock pins give easily. She smiles satisfied, proud, turns to Jug as she slips the bobby pin back to hide in her hair. “I learned that from the Nancy Drew Handbook.”

 

He sounds a little breathless when he swears she could be his ‘dream girl.’ She laughs it off, feels her cheeks get hot, tries not to stare at the subtle flush that spreads across his own face when he realizes what came out of his mouth. She distracts herself with what’s inside Grundy’s cash box, hands Jughead a driver’s license to help him overcome his own discomfort.

 

Everyone picked up on it over the past few weeks since the Chuck incident.

 

Archie was too afraid to broach the subject with her directly given the beginning of year confession. He could only say that he was happy to see them both getting along. She wondered if he liked that Jughead might be serving as a distraction from her own feelings for Archie. That train of thought worries her. Does Jughead think that? Is there an ounce of truth to it?

 

She doesn’t really notice it, this awkward undefinable it between she and Jughead, until Veronica points it out one afternoon after cheer practice that he is practically her shadow. “Nothing is going on between you two?” No. Nothing like that. “Well, do you think something might happen?” To which Betty responded she didn’t know. She really didn’t know.

 

Veronica starts to make it a habit of throwing her pointed looks each time there is one hint of some kind of courtship. An affectionate touch, an overcautious glance, token gestures like Betty packing an extra cookie for him at lunch or Jughead offering to return her library books for her - all of these are critiqued, their meanings analyzed, and Betty begins to feel like she is under a microscope, like she and Jughead are two birds in the wild whose every move is carefully scrutinized by a gang of willful biologists, that all these signs are just their own self-fulfilling prophecies and not a natural progression towards something substantial, something real.

 

Kevin rationalized nothing had happened because of the Archie confession quickly succeeded by the Chuck incident, enough to shut any girl down for at least a semester. He also reasoned Jughead was an emotionally stunted and social cripple incapable of expressing romantic interest in anyone, of either sex. “Maybe all he needs is a little push?” Kevin inquired whether she was prepared to test the theory herself, be the guinea pig in the Jughead orientation probe.

 

Jughead played things close to the chest. He had always been an intensely private person, close to Archie but playing the contented third wheel to the Archie and Betty show throughout their childhood. Or at least she thought he had been the contented third wheel. In elementary and middle school it was never just Jughead and Betty. Archie was always the middle man. When high school started, Archie and Jughead seemed to drift apart, and it naturally followed she and Jug drifted, too. They exchanged polite hellos freshman year, nodded to each other in the classes they shared, held the occasional small talk that always ended with her laughing, but he stopped sitting at their lunch table. She never saw him at lunch anymore. She always wondered who drifted first.

 

So, she tiptoed, afraid any sudden movement might send him running. Because she liked Jughead. She wanted him to stick around, Archie or no Archie, because he cut through the bullshit. She liked him even when he was judgmental and ranting, especially when it was about the investigation. She liked that best, that he seemed to genuinely enjoy writing for the _Blue and Gold_ , the investigation, that he was involved. Most of all she liked that he was present, while Archie had morphed into a total flake.

 

But now she knew why.

 

“Who the hell is Jennifer Gibson?”

 

Betty reaches into the cash box. “Yeah, that’s not the only thing.”

 

Grundy’s Rossi pinched between her thumb and forefinger, Jughead pales. “Holy shit.”

 

The gun sits in her duffle on the vinyl bench seat. She watches Jughead demolish his double cheeseburger while she can barely make eye contact with her grilled cheese, taking occasional sips of her tomato bisque. She doesn’t know how she is going to approach Archie with this new information, staring at Jughead pulling bread-and-butter pickles from his burger, dipping them in ketchup before eating them.

 

She tries to remember a time when Jughead wasn’t hungry, observing him eating three fries at a time. He is stirring fries in ketchup when he catches her staring, his hand hovering above the puddle of red on his plate. “What?” His mouth is still full of fries cordoned off in one cheek like a hamster.

 

“I’m thinking about what we used to call you in middle school – the Void, Mr. Black Hole, the Vacuum Cleaner, Great White, the Bottomless Pit, Garbage Disposal.”

 

He barely manages to swallow before he laughs. “How I miss the old names.” He licks his fingers of salt, grease, and ketchup before toying with the last half of his burger. “You know, it was because I never knew where my next meal was coming from. You just get this unending hunger. I can’t say no to food. Ever.” He studies her face after he says it, his gaze darting to his burger when he feels he looks too long.

 

It’s sad, she thinks, but it is also just him, too. She cannot imagine Jughead as anything other than perpetually insatiable.

 

He continues eating his burger, eyeing the unbitten half of her grilled cheese. She nudges her plate in his direction while looking at Reggie Mantle talking animatedly with a group of jocks two booths down, stirring her bisque absentmindedly. Jughead finishes his burger and makes a grab for her grilled cheese.

 

* * *

 

 

Betty beats herself up more for not hiding the gun better, and Jughead asks why she took it anyway. She still has no answer to that. She didn’t expose Grundy on purpose, and she was willing to let the sleeping dog lie. Her mother wasn’t.

 

In the aftermath, Archie’s window remains curtained for the rest of the week. She tries texting him apologies five different ways, but he ignores each one. And her lukewarm attempts to approach him at school are met with prickly indifference. It’s not just her. He ducks Jughead, too, by association.

 

Veronica plays ambassador, attempting to grease Archie’s wheels in Betty’s favor. She assures Betty she has no ulterior motive, that she isn’t interested in being Archie’s rebound lay, that she really is only interested in repairing Betty and Archie’s friendship. Betty is, too, more than anything, but she just doesn’t know how to explain to Veronica that she doesn’t see Archie that way anymore, that she didn’t expose Grundy to have Archie for herself. She wants to tell Veronica to stop playing cupid.

 

In the meantime, she troubles herself with another mission. Find Polly. She feels guilty for putting it on the back burner to investigate Grundy, but the more she and Jughead discover about Jason Blossom and the circumstances surrounding his murder, the more certain she becomes that her sister may be the missing link.

 

Something happens the morning she invites Jughead over for a breakfast fact-finding endeavor. It isn’t something she expects. It didn’t happen while they were planning it in the _Blue and Gold_ office the day before nor when Jughead texted her earlier that morning to make sure the plan was still in place. It came unexpectedly.

 

Jughead gives her a look over the lip of his juice glass and reads her unspoken cue effortlessly, turning to her mother and inquiring innocently about the restroom. She plays her part. He plays his, briefly glancing over his shoulder as her mother leads him down the hall, and Betty feels something fluttering in her stomach.

 

If she had used Archie, she never would have gotten away with it. Archie’s fortes did not include discretion or taking direction from facial expressions. Veronica may have pulled it off, but she knows her mother would have allowed Betty to show Veronica the bathroom unchaperoned, leaving no opportunity for one of them to root through her mother’s purse for clues.

 

It only worked because it was Jughead.

 

* * *

 

 

The bus rolls out of the station, and Jug nudges her, tongue-in-cheek. “I keep thinking the Singing Nun is going to pop out.” She wants to laugh, but a reserve of tears waits in the wings behind her eyes as she gazes up at the severe stone façade of the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. He tries a second time, “Don’t judge a home for troubled youths by its cover, Cooper.” She feels measurably better, more secure with his shoulder pressed to hers, his sardonicism oddly comforting. Her shoulders square with the convent, and her fingers tug the root of her pony, tightening the band and her resolve.

 

The nuns order Jughead to stay in the lobby, and she loses some of her confidence wandering the halls of the Sisters searching for her sister alone. Her confidence wanes further when she finds Polly among the roses, delusional, manic, and - worse - pregnant.

 

“Does Jason know I’m here?”

 

Betty tries to calm her, wonders if the Sisters are drugging her. Polly details this fantastical story about how she tried to kill herself hoping it would bring Jason back to her. She shows Betty the scar, and Betty grits her teeth to keep from sobbing on the spot. She lays her palm over the singular imperfection on her older sister’s translucent skin, tugs her into an embrace. Her sister continues to babble at her, unblinking with the details. She wants Betty to pass a message to Jason, about how sorry she feels, about the baby, about their father trying to convince Polly to get rid of it, sending her to the Sisters when she refused, about how much she misses him – Jason.

 

She grabs her sister’s hands to check her wild gesticulations. “Polly, did Jason know about the baby?”

 

Her sister shakes her head no, absentmindedly, almost subconsciously tugging her hands away from Betty, as if she cannot express herself correctly without the freedom to move her hands. “I was going to tell him after he came back to me. Has he asked about me?”

 

Betty is terrified to tell her sister the truth, but Polly deserves it. She looks down at her swollen belly. Her sister deserves more than the truth.

 

Polly breaks down sobbing, pulling away from Betty. “I knew it. God, I knew it.” Betty implores her sister to tell her before Polly really falls apart, scrambling for her sister’s last piece of clarity. “I told him that if he kept doing what he was doing, he was going to get hurt.” The words are broken and jumbled, but Betty manages to piece them together, asks for more, just one more word to understand. “Dealing drugs. Stupid. God, he was so stupid.”

 

Her sister reaches for her hair, considerably shorter than the last time Betty saw her, tugging at the straw blonde. Her hitching sobs mutate into protracted wails, yanking her hair at the roots now. Betty’s gaze skirts the grounds, gripping her sister’s shoulders to keep her upright. A few wards turn their way. A couple of nuns point in their direction.

 

She tries to coax Polly off the ledge, soft-pedaling her voice like Polly used to when Betty had a night terror. “Polly, it’s okay. I’m going to get you out of here.” Polly’s cries get louder, drowning out the world around her, drowning out Betty. “Polly, listen,” she tries again, dipping to bring their faces closer. She can feel the heat radiating from Polly’s burning cheeks, her puffy eyes. Betty can see the veins popping in Polly’s forehead and regrets telling her sister. She wants to reach for her pregnant belly as a silent apology. “Polly, I love you.”

 

Betty feels a hand close over her shoulder, pulling her backward none too gently. She tugs her shoulder away, pleads for Polly to look at her. She just needs Polly to look at her, to believe her, to tell her what happened, where it all went wrong.

 

She’s being picked up. Betty’s feet leave the ground. Two wards drag Polly away from her, kicking and screaming and cursing. Betty spots strands of straw blonde fluttering from her sister’s fingers as the wards haul her away.

 

* * *

 

 

Her notepad is open on the desk in front of her. She puts the cap on the pen to keep the ink from drying. Her hand hovers above the blank page. She watches it tremble, curls her fingers into her palms to stop, the trembling, the thrumming of blood behind her ears, the tangle of thoughts knotting in her head. Skin splits and something like pleasing nausea fills her belly, the static in her mind dissolving into bursts of light behind her eyes closed tight. Her breath comes unburdened as blood fills her nail beds.

 

It isn’t enough. She opens her hands and stares at the nail marks, little red smiles grinning up at her, ridiculing her, humiliating her. She is not enough. She can’t breathe.

 

Something taps her window, forcing a surprised inhale. Jughead gives her a little wave when she turns towards the window, and for a moment all the big bad uglies get tucked away. A smile teases at the corner of her lips as she pads over to the window, unlatching the lock and letting him tumble across the bench seat, his dirty sneakers scuffing the cushion.

 

He looks out of place in her bedroom where Tinker Bell threw up on the walls, a dark contradiction to so much pink. And he feels it, rocking awkwardly on his heels as his gaze skirts along the walls, studying the mural of photographs above her vanity. There is only one photo that includes him, and it was taken two summers ago right before freshman year, the three musketeers at the Sweetwater swimming hole, Betty in her first bikini. She wonders if he will stick around long enough this time to be included in more photographs, if he will let himself be important enough to have a lasting place in her life.

 

He turns towards her with a self-conscious smile. “I just wanted to check in with you, you know, after.” He waves at some abstraction behind him but maintains eye contact, the worry clear, and Betty fractures. She is about to crumble on the carpet until Jughead wraps his arms around her, supports her weight against him. She cannot get enough oxygen. Each breath hitches in her chest, and Jughead cradles her head against his shoulder, waits patiently for her panic attack to subside in minutes, hours. She disappears for a little while.

 

* * *

 

 

**October 2016**

**Jughead**

**My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) by Neil Young**

 

He thought he was being careful. Students rarely used the locker room showers that early. Track practice didn’t finish until 7:00 a.m., and most of the athletes went back home to shower instead of using the school’s facilities. First period wasn’t until 8:30 a.m. and students didn’t start trickling into the halls until at least an hour before that. A few took the early bus in from the boonies, but they kept to the library or loitered at nearby coffee shops until the first bell. By the time he finished showering, he had at least half an hour to raid the cafeteria and then hole up in the closet to get some reading done until first period or a meeting with Betty in the _Blue and Gold_ office. He had learned the janitor’s hours, the faculty, the administration, the schedules of the students he had to worry about. By all accounts, he was too careful. Leave it to Archie to be the wrench in the well-oiled machine.

 

His lukewarm explanation falls flat to his own ears. “He thinks I’m couch surfing.” He doesn’t think. He doesn’t care.

 

Archie’s half-baked overly optimistic plan to recreate his father in Fred’s image makes Jug wince inwardly, but maybe, only maybe reforming his father into some semblance of a reasonable parental figure might stabilize both their situations, might throw off some heat. So, he plays along. Fred Andrews agrees, for Jughead’s sake, and it still feels like charity, like pity.

 

FP bumps into the empty dresser in the hall on his way towards the kitchen nearly drops his tumbler of piss-whiskey. The dresser is so much lighter now with nothing in it.

 

Jughead worries his lower lip, his leg jumping, heel tapping back against the kitchen cabinets. “I take it Fred Andrews called you,” he starts, motioning towards his father’s day-drinking. “Are you gonna take the offer?”

 

FP laughs and pours himself a refresher. “Yeah, and we both know why that can’t happen.” The fifth is empty.

 

“Maybe it’s better this way, go the straight and narrow,” he reasons, unfolding his arms, turning to face his father head-on. “You’ll fly under the radar better.”

 

His father pulls in a finger of whiskey, holds it in his mouth with his cheek bulging as he eyes his son. He swallows and smacks his mouth. “I can’t do that, Jug.” Jug watches him swirl the last of the whiskey in his tumbler. “Cliff needs to think everything is business as usual, and if I suddenly make a break for the good life, it will look suspicious.” He laughs at himself a little when he says the ‘good life.’

 

“Just think about it, okay?” Jug hears empty bottles clink into the kitchen sink and lets the screen door slam behind him on the way out.

 

* * *

 

 

He has called his dad three times now. His eyes trace the entire room, and he feels like Camus’s stranger counting the tiles of his prison cell, seeing his life pass by in each one. He shakes his head, closes his eyes tight to think of something else, someone else to call. Archie and Betty are number one and number two on his speed dial, respectively, but they are already in the lobby harassing the front desk officer and any deputy that passes by.

 

He should calm down. They don’t have anything. Everything Sheriff Keller listed, it was all circumstantial, nothing directly tied to Jason. Nothing but a brief stint in juvie, playing with matches. Nothing.

 

Earlier, Betty grabbed his hand, told him she believed him. She said she trusts him, her faith unwavering, but his father would tell him he should be ashamed of himself. His father would say this is not laying low. This is the exact opposite of laying low. He knows this, but he can’t stop himself. He feels Betty’s hand covering his own. It never occurs to her that he might have done it, killed someone. She wouldn’t even entertain the thought when he posed the question. She doesn’t see that in him.

 

Sheriff Keller opens the door and begrudgingly tells him he can go. He spies Fred Andrews standing behind the sheriff, arm outstretched and ready to sling along Jug’s shoulders, guiding him towards the exit a free man. Jughead hesitantly lets Fred’s arm settle along his back, so paternal it chafes when Fred’s fingers curl into his arm and direct him towards Archie and Betty waiting by the double doors.

 

He is thankful there are no deputies lingering in the parking lot when his father stumbles towards them, a bull in a china shop shouting their dirty laundry for half of Riverdale to hear. Jesus, he is mixing metaphors in his own head. He hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. Betty’s hand finds his again, a small comfort until he has to approach his father, deal with his demons directly. It takes everything in him not to punch his old man in front of the sheriff’s office, just lay him out on the blacktop.

 

He pulls Archie close to whisper, “I’m gonna make sure he gets home okay.” Archie squeezes his shoulder in understanding, reassures him he has a place with the Andrews. He will always have a place with the Andrews, and it hurts Jug to think he might test that theory.

 

His father sees him round the corner and tosses him the keys. He catches them awkwardly against his chest, grinds his teeth as he slides into the driver’s seat.

 

He watches his father beeline for the kitchen, the liquor bottles on top of the fridge. FP didn’t say a word the whole drive to the trailer. He spread his hand across his eyes and leaned his forehead against the passenger side window, his mouth an unfathomable line, and Jughead just focused on the dotted center line in silence.

 

He hears the hiss and crack of the first beer of the evening, his father sucking up the foam around the lip. FP doesn’t say thank you for getting him home. He looks at Jughead like he is either expecting a fight or for Jug to hook the keys by the door and leave. Jug decides on confrontation.

 

“I got lucky.”

 

His dad sneers. “Yeah, good ole Fred Andrews.” He drinks half the beer in three swallows.

 

Jughead hooks the keys, stares at the empty hook where his mother’s keys used to hang next to the extra set for his father’s cycle. “I might not be so lucky next time.”

 

The can crashes against the kitchen wall next to the window, sprays the blinds and wall with beer. Jug gets some of the splash back on his face. His father rounds on him. “Because you’re too fucking close, Jug! Everything with Betty, your little investigation, you’re too close.”

 

Jughead swallows the lump in his throat, wipes the side of his face with the back of his sleeve. “But, it’s fine now,” he tries. He cannot give up the opportunity to be near Betty, even if it means he will be too close to the case. He wouldn’t give it up for anything. “And I can keep steering it.”

 

“Steering it?” FP takes two steps and gets his grip on Jug’s jacket. “You nearly crashed into it, Jug!” He punctuates this by shoving his son against the front door. “I had to clean up your mess, again.”

 

“You torched the car?”

 

FP looks at him like he should be smarter than that.

 

“You don’t have to protect me.”

 

“I wasn’t just protecting you! I’m protecting all of the Serpents!” FP breathes deep and runs his hands through his hair, slicks it back into place, as if afraid he will put his hands on Jughead again, put his hands on him and do something worse. “You’re going to Toledo.”

 

His anger flares at that. “What? No.”

 

“Don’t argue with me.”

 

“I can’t leave.” He can’t leave Betty.

 

FP grabs him again, a harder shove against the front door. “Jug, I can’t protect you! Get that through your thick, stubborn skull, boy!” Another harder shove, and then Jug is shoving back, wrenching his jacket out of his dad’s hands and pushing him back. FP stumbles and steadies himself against the kitchen counter. Jug has a steak knife in his hand, his pulse racing, sick to his stomach. He grips the knife handle so tight, doesn’t remember grabbing it off the table, closes his eyes again to stop his thoughts from racing.

 

His father sneers and nods. “Yeah, here he is.” FP wrings his hands together like he is washing his son off, throws them up in surrender. “You’re gonna kill us both.”

 

Jughead releases his grip, the knife balanced on his palm, looks at the blade and then his father. Just like that, it’s gone. It’s over, his heart still running in his chest but the pulse of his anger dissolving into numbness, defeat. On the final pulse, he slams his hand down on the kitchen table, leaves the knife lodged in the Formica veneer.

 

* * *

 

 

**October 2016**

**Betty**

**Hazard by Gossling**

“How was your brief affair as Cheryl’s call boy?”

 

Veronica laughs and Archie glares at his best friend. “It wasn’t like that, Jug.”

 

“It was going to be,” Jug reasons, fishing for the bag of chips out of the vending machine receptacle. “Oh Archie, sometimes you’re too naïve for your own good.” He pinches Archie’s cheek as he passes, and the redhead swats him away.

 

The freeze-out between Archie and his childhood best friends has thawed thanks to some mysterious persuasion and manipulation on Veronica’s part. Betty thinks it may have something to do with Archie’s short stint as Cheryl Blossom’s pet. Veronica tells her later that he just needed to figure out who his real friends were, and realize she and Jughead honestly had his best interests at heart. When Betty goes to offer a more rehearsed and lengthy apology to Archie, Veronica gently suggests she do something quietly sentimental with a simple sorry. Betty buys him a new capo and paisley guitar strap and swallows her diatribe around a humble sorry. And how she made Jughead do it. Later she swears to Veronica that was the only thing she added.   

 

Jughead perches on the seat back of the couch next to Betty, his knee nudging her shoulder, chuckling to himself at Archie’s reaction. He offers her a chip, but she declines politely. Something has shifted between them since their visit to the Sisters. It’s like they cannot be in each other’s presence without physical contact. Without a second thought, she leans into his knee. She wants his hand on her shoulder. And there it is. She doesn’t have to ask.

 

But, he hasn’t even tried to kiss her yet. _Yet_. She glances up at him tipping the bag of chips directly into his mouth, looks away quickly when he brings the bag down. Does she want that? Does he want to? She remembers her conversation with Kevin about Jughead’s ambiguous orientation, and then she tries to recall Jughead ever showing romantic interest in anyone or anything, besides food. A complete blank. But then Jughead is pretty private, very reserved, prefers to be alone. He never allows anyone to get close, but he lets her, and Archie, the only two exceptions to his secret intersocial rules.

 

Veronica gives her a quizzical look, but Betty returns it with a placid, neutral smile. Jug’s fingers curl into her shoulder when he feels her tense up under Veronica’s silent inquisition. She needs to maintain. But, his hands feel so good on her. That afternoon in her bedroom after visiting Polly, he’d felt so good holding her, comforting, without expectation for more. She must have cried for at least twenty minutes, and he didn’t say a single word. His embrace around her sanity never waned.

 

Maybe she needs to revisit with Kevin. Maybe Veronica, too.

 

Archie and Veronica draw her attention away, forcing her to shelve this, whatever this is – awkward budding interest, passing romantic consideration, maybe fledgling crush – to the recesses of her anxiety-riddled mind.

 

Archie goes first. “I heard something at the dinner party between Clifford and Penelope about Hiram Lodge.” Jughead perks up at that, leaning forward. It’s new evidence. Even Betty’s ears are peeled for the next part. Archie glances at Veronica for permission, and the brunette nods her assent. “They said they exposed Hiram.”

 

“And that’s not all,” Veronica chimes in before they can digest this new piece of information. “I found records of payments between Clifford and my dad, the Lodges and the Blossoms, going back seventy-five years.”

 

Betty asks quietly, unsure whether she should follow Veronica’s train of thought without confirming. “V, you know what this sounds like?”

 

“I’m not as naïve as Archie-kins here, B,” Veronica declares, aiming for levity, patting Archie on the shoulder, before sobering. “I know my father isn’t innocent, and I would want to know if he was caught up in something worse than what he went to prison for. I would want the truth, even if it was – was something as awful as murder.”

 

Jughead and Betty meet after school in the _Blue and Gold_ to go over their fresh evidence. He writes ‘Hiram Lodge’ on the index card and pins it below the photograph of mother and father Blossom. The closer the index card is to a photo of Jason Blossom, the guiltier the suspect.

 

She stares at the murder board, arms folded, riffs off hand to Jug about her shifting theories. “It was a message, to Clifford maybe.”

 

He traces a path with his index finger between Hiram and Clifford, considering it in his own head. She wants to hear his thoughts, but her own are flooding her mouth as she moves towards the board, standing side by side with him. “They, whoever it was, wanted to beat him beyond recognition, wanted him to suffer. But, the bullet suggests something more professional, clinical. And then dumping him in the river, forcing the Blossoms to have a closed casket. Everything about it seems to have a purpose, a revenge feel to it. Don’t you feel it, Jug?”

 

She means it towards the case, but when she looks at him, he stares at her with some unfathomable intensity. “Do you see where I’m coming from?” she tries, her voice fading, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, and his eyes trace the movement.

 

He swallows, breaks out of his thoughts, makes fleeting eye contact. “Yeah.” He turns back toward the web of motives, and she deflates a little. “Yeah, it makes sense.”

 

They stare at the board, shoulder to shoulder, stewing with the new evidence until Jughead breaks the silence. “Have you talked to Polly recently?”

 

Thankful to have something else to think about besides the overwhelming urge to press her shoulder into his, to have another point of contact, of warmth to focus on, she steps back, skirts around the desk to put some distance between them. “I asked my mother about it. She and my dad got into this huge fight after I told her what Polly told me. My dad is sleeping at the Register, and Polly is coming home this weekend. Me and my mom are going to pick her up.” Which means he cannot come, unfortunately. He looks disappointed, too.

* * *

 

 

**October 2016**

**Jughead**

**Present Tense by Radiohead**

 

He builds a house with the index cards from their murder board. His phone has several messages from the Sheriff, Archie, Betty, even one from Fred Andrews. He balances his chin on his folded hands, gazes through the first floor of the little house.

 

He had so many pieces of conflicting evidence to work with, a pile of Easter eggs to leave for Keller and his bulls.

 

He and Betty found Jason’s drug running car filled with paraphernalia, but his father torched it. Jug had to develop a contingency plan, a backup wing in his ramshackle Rube Goldberg. He got uncharacteristically lucky. He thinks Betty might be his only source of luck. She told him about her solo interrogation with Reggie Mantle, a ‘date’ in Reggie’s eyes, about Jason’s runs to the border, Reggie leaking double entendres about the ‘family business.’ Betty put two and two together on a hunch really, drafting Jughead to tail the Blossom delivery trucks.

 

Photos of Clifford Blossom interacting with his fleet of mules driving delivery trucks, bricks of black tar and cases of powdered amphetamines packed into pixie-sticks loaded up in empty syrup barrels. These images make up the second floor in his house of cards along with the evidence of Hiram Lodge indicted for fraud and embezzlement using evidence leaked by Clifford Blossom. Even Hal Cooper’s sociopathic animosity towards the Blossoms for his eldest daughter’s disgrace was on the table. All of it a spider’s web of motives at his disposal. There were so many different perspectives, a grab bag of possibilities, and he wondered if he should just toss some names in a hat and drop an anonymous tip with the Sheriff.

 

None of it matters anymore. He tried to deflect the heat towards someone else, anyone else, but the pieces kept falling in his direction despite. Jones luck. Dumb luck. Unavoidable bad fucking biblical Job-level luck. One exhale is all it takes to level the foundation, his fantasies disintegrating, his machinations failing, the house of cards comes tumbling down. His father has been arrested. He is certain.

 

“What are you thinking about so seriously?” Spotlighted under the single security light, Betty stands in the doorway to the _Blue and Gold_ office. She asks but she knows, just like she knew she was going to find him here where his life started to make sense again, where her own started to find some of that same brand of stability.

 

It’s late, really late. The janitor has to have already locked all the doors, but they never stay locked long when Betty has other plans. His heart hurts to know he lies somewhere in her plans. He was planning on sleeping in the storage closet, because he cannot go back to the trailer, tear through the police tape a second time. He was planning on ditching Riverdale completely, purposefully excluding her from his plans, but she asks him to walk her home, folding him back into her plans. She won’t let him be an extra, no matter how much he desperately wants to disappear into the background.

 

She doesn’t wonder why he never answered his phone. She doesn’t order him to call the Andrews and let them know he is okay. She doesn’t remind him of all the consequences coming his way, the inevitable fallout. They evade the night janitor, sneaking out through the back door to the girl’s locker room, slipping past the dark tennis courts. Her hand slips into his own, guiding him along.

 

The town is so quiet. No one knows yet. For the moment, he is still Jughead Jones, an innocuous loner, an overlooked name on a school newspaper byline, the mysterious Oz in the projection booth at the Twilight, the boy who loves Betty Cooper, and the only boy Betty Cooper holds hands with.

 

Her hand still folded in his own, he tugs her to a gentle stop. “Can we stop by the Sheriff’s?”

 

“Yes,” she nods. “Of course, Jug.”

 

He leaves Betty in the lobby of the Sheriff’s department, her arm outstretched to prolong the contact between their fingers as he walks away. He hears her palm slap her thigh as her arm falls. Sheriff Keller lets Jug sit with his father in the interrogation room. They are still waiting to hear about a free lawyer, although Keller mentions one came by earlier, FP saying something about a false alarm.

 

“Why did you confess?” These are the first incredulous words out of Jug’s mouth.

 

“It’s a message, Jug.” His father leaning across the table and talking low, and all Jughead can see are his hands on top of the table, white-knuckled fingers wringing over themselves, handcuffs clinking around his father’s wrists, shark eyes manic and already looking like a caged animal. Jughead wonders if his face reflects the same panic, the same despair. “From Hiram.” How Hiram, or more accurately Hiram’s associates, would know where to find the gun was beyond Jughead. He could never have accounted for something like that.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

FP glances at the door. He knows they are recording all of this, but he wonders if it matters anymore. Jughead only needs to refrain from implicating himself, that he knew the story all along. “Hiram’s lawyer came in the guise of representing me.” A warning. Exchanges between a lawyer and the accused are confidential, unrecorded. Hiram would know this. More importantly, Hiram had eyes and ears on the ground. Hiram must’ve known the Sheriff’s head was tilting in his direction and put his pieces into play accordingly. “You gotta keep your head down, especially now,” his father warns him needlessly.

 

“He’s dead.” Clifford Blossom shot himself a few hours after FP’s arrest when Sheriff Keller came to arrest him for the drug running Betty and Jughead uncovered. Or that was the story, finding Clifford in the barn with syrup barrels toppled over, kilos of black tar heroin and jingle jangle scattered, the .45 two inches from Clifford’s hand and half his skull opened on the barn floor. Even Jug was taken aback by the news. He thought Clifford had more bite.

 

But FP crumbles with this new information. A tight grimace twists across his face as he folds over himself. “Fuck.” The bearing of his confession working through his father’s shoulders, his elbows digging into the metal tabletop, the handcuffs rattling from his shaking hands, and it is like watching someone fight tetanus. “Fuck.” He could have made it work. If he had held onto his confession a little longer, he could have made it work.

 

“I can –,” Jug starts but his father’s head shoots up, leveling his son with a mix he can barely comprehend in the moment – despair, terror, rage, and hatred, either towards himself or his son, Jughead cannot tell.

 

FP finishes for him, “You can shut your fucking mouth and keep your head down.” He flattens his palms against the tabletop, takes a deep breath to settle himself. “Who knows, maybe living with the Andrews might help you.”

 

Betty is still sitting in the lobby, observing a perp walk for a minor misdemeanor, drunk and disorderly. She stands up when he gets closer, and while she doesn’t take his hand, her eyes look like she wants to.

 

He manages to put a town block between themselves and the Sheriff’s department before he breaks down. He tugs his beanie down over his eyes, smashing his palms into his sockets, his mouth curling around the first awful sob. He shouldn’t be crying. His world ended months ago, and he should’ve been ready for this, his inevitable bad luck, his constant specter, the embarrassment twisting in his belly to know where he had come from, to know what he would become and why. He did this. He made this.

 

Betty’s arms slip up under his, her hands spreading across the back of his neck and his shoulder, guiding him forward into her. When he surrenders a little of his weight, she stumbles back into the brick wall next to a storefront, yet she keeps her arms around him, pulls him closer. He thinks he might be holding her too tight, smothering her, but she doesn’t ask him to let her go. His face falls into the crook of her shoulder, a soggy mess, interminable sorries pouring from his mouth, and her embrace only binds him closer, drawing him inside of her.

 

She leaves him at the Andrews’ door, Freddie yanking him inside by the scruff and into a tight embrace. He thinks for the first time in his life that people would miss him if he were gone. He glances at Betty standing on the threshold of the Andrews’ house. She would miss him if he were gone.

 

It must be the zero hour by now. He sits on the edge of Archie’s bed absently strumming his friend’s guitar, a slightly discordant tune that sounds better the slower it gets. Archie is in the shower, steam rolling out from under the door. He insisted Jug take one first, his tactful way of implying Jug needed one, eyes still swollen and nose puffy red, his clothes wrinkled and pant legs mucked up from tracking his way through the muddy snow to his dad’s trailer earlier. Jughead waved him off. He’ll go last.

 

His next attempt at a harmonious chord comes out strident, and he chuckles at himself. He should stick to writing.

 

His eyes flicker to the window, the window across the way. A flash of blonde hair loose from its usual ponytail, a bare shoulder leading to the curve of her naked spine that is quickly swallowed up by the sleep shirt she shrugs over her head and shoulders. He watches her check her phone before plugging in the charger, running her hand through her wavy hair, untangling a few strands. He wonders when she will let her hair down around him more.

 

She reaches for the antique desk lamp, tugging the chain and filling the room with a warm green glow. She must be tired but wired, like him, reading before bed. He stares at that magnetic green light, hears the pipes sputter as Archie finishes his shower. He plays another chord, something more balanced, consonant, keeps his eyes trained on that green light as he finds the chord again.

 

* * *

 

 

**June 2017**

**Jughead**

**Down by the River by Neil Young**

 

She stretches out on the cheap Reagan-era couch wearing nothing but one of his old ‘S’ t-shirts, braless, a pair of cotton boy-shorts, her bare thighs smoothing along the threadbare velvet as she arches her feet against the opposite arm. An open copy of _The Jungle_ is balanced on her stomach, her choice for the summer reading project, an American dream theme.

 

There is no air conditioner in the trailer, but it is quiet compared to the Andrews where Archie practices drums in the garage and Fred renovates the upstairs bathroom. When she couldn’t find him at the Andrews, she expected him to be here. She knocked on his door mid-morning complaining about her mother’s unannounced pow-wow with the Farm’s sister wives. “It was all very Martha Marcy May Marlene.”

 

Ten minutes in that hot tin can with every window box fan going, she finally kicked her jean shorts off and flipped them over the couch arm to pile next to her sneakers. He didn’t blame her. He answered the door in boxers and a wife beater, and he considers losing the top. He contemplates bringing their impromptu study session to the Sweetwater.

 

He tries to focus on his cheater choice for summer reading because this is his third time around, _The Great Gatsby_. It is a mere formality at this point, a refresher, but he takes more purposeful notes in the margins this time. He tries to focus on the words, but he is more distracted by sweat, his own and hers, the shine on her bare thighs, her flushed cheeks. “You want some water?”

 

She looks at him over the top of her book. “Yes, please. You have ice?”

 

He nods. “You want a bag of ice, too?”

 

She smiles. “I like the way you think, Jones.”

 

He hauls himself to the kitchen, dragging the hem of his top up to mop up his forehead. “You want to go swimming later?” He calls from the kitchen, pulling open the freezer door and lingering in the cold opening for a couple of moments, his burning cheek pressed to the icy plastic.

 

“Yeah, we could call Veronica and Archie, maybe go to the swimming hole,” she offers as he cracks ice out of the metal trays, filling two Ziplocs.

 

He fills two clean glasses with ice before adding water from the tap, lets the water run for a little while to cool. “Didn’t we get covered in leeches last time we went there?” He comes back into the living room with his version of air conditioning.

 

She takes the bag of ice and sticks it under his t-shirt to rest over her belly button, gives him a flash of her pale stomach, the dip of her navel. “Was that us? I thought that was a movie.”

 

He smirks and shakes his head. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was us.”

 

He takes a seat on the floor leaning back against the couch, stuffs the bag of ice under his shirt. He feels her press the perspiring glass to the back of his neck, explaining, “I heard when you press cold stuff to your neck, it tricks your body into thinking it is cooler.”

 

He already feels the effects, tilting his head back into the glass, groaning at the combination of cool under his shirt and against his nape. “Screw it, let’s try out the swimming hole later.”

 

She giggles, dripping ice water down the back of his neck. “We should at least finish a chapter,” she reasons, pouring little streams of water along his shoulder blades, the top of his head. He nods absentmindedly, tucking his chin to his chest, his fingers popping open the Ziploc bag to sift through melting ice. “It’s too hot to play.” She sounds a little hazy, and when he cants his head to the side to look at her, she is watching the water beading along his neck, mingling with the sweat. Her book has slid off to the side, wedged between her and the couch. Her glass is half-full.

 

He takes a couple of ice cubes in his hand and reaches back, smooths it slowly along her bare thigh, the ice keeping his palm from her hot skin, melting and getting closer. She flinches at first but eases into it, smiling softly, slightly sleepy from the heat. By the time he reaches her ankle, the ice is nearly melted and his palm is tight and sticky against her sweaty ankle bone. A small silent pause, his grip firm on her ankle. She drinks the rest of her water and reaches behind to place the glass on the side table. He is still waiting for his cue, fingers tapping his own glass next to his hip. She tosses her book over the side of the couch and reaches for her panties, quickly shimmying them down her thighs, her body wiggling against the cushions.

 

He peels his wife beater over his head before grabbing her by the legs, swinging her towards him, hooking them around his waist as he crawls up the length of her body. He accidentally knocks over his water glass but doesn’t care about kneeling in the icy puddle, pulling her hips closer, her core hot against the front of his boxers. He finds her discarded bag of ice, unseals it and pops a cube in his mouth.

 

His mouth starts where her jawline meets her ear, the ice cube balanced just behind his lips to touch her skin. Her hands are reaching for his boxers impatient, but he pushes them aside, presses closer to give her some satisfying pressure, himself a little relief. His fingers nudge his t-shirt up, bunching it up over her stomach, her breasts. Cool water and sweat pools in the notch of her collar, and he sucks there before fumbling for another ice cube. She rolls her hips against him, making his knees weak, his gut tightening around his control slipping. Another ice cube slips between his teeth and he presses his mouth to one breast, his lips folding around her nipple and feeling it pucker quick. He meets her hot skin, leaves it cold, traces this cool path along to the other breast, along the valley between her rib cage, the swell below her navel, replacing more ice in his mouth as it melts. Her stomach presses against his mouth and chin as she yanks his t-shirt over her head, tossing it to the side.

 

He watches her press her knuckles against her mouth, nipping at them as he pops another ice cube in his mouth, hooking her thighs over his shoulders. “It’s too hot for this,” she murmurs against the back of her hand as his mouth presses just below her clit, her words ending with a hiss as her back arches, the stark contrast making her keen. He tongues around the ice cube awkwardly, pushing it against her folds, grazing her clit on occasion when he feels her gut seize under his palm.

 

“One more,” he insists and she nods her assent, her hands gripping the couch cushion behind her head as she watches another ice cube disappear between his lips. He runs the ice along the seam of her pussy, and she cries out the Lord's name in vain, her hips twisting away but mercilessly held steady by his hands on her hipbones. His tongue pushes the remains of the cube inside her, and she whines, one hand sinking into his hair, her hips rolling into his mouth. He gives her a little teeth on the way up before closing his mouth completely over her clit, all business now.

 

Her phone goes off, her mother’s ringtone. She grabs it off the side table, flips the notch to silent, and throws it across the living room, hears it skid across the linoleum in the kitchen. Her hand returns to his hair, grazing down the back of his scalp and pressing his face closer. The phone vibrates against the linoleum and Jughead chuckles, the vibration of his laugh against her pussy making her moan in response. “Focus, Juggie, please.”

 

She is close, groaning to drown out the phone vibrating in the kitchen. He swirls his tongue around her clit, teeth catching here and there. Her cheeks are beet red from the heat, breathless, and he is worried for a moment she might overheat. She comes hard during his worry, her hips rolling towards him, grinding her clit against his mouth. He plays catch-up, carries her along the throes.

 

Her features relax after a while, her chest still stuttering around her orgasm, the muscles in her lower belly spasming under his lips sucking bruises into her skin. “Christ, Juggie,” she murmurs reverently, her eyes still closed. “That was different.”

 

He reaches up and swipes the sweat across her cheeks. “You want some more water?” She looks dehydrated but sated. He’s so hard it aches, his balls throbbing, but he needs to know she won’t pass out in the next few seconds.

 

“Let me get my sea legs back and I’ll get us some water.” He offers to get it again, but she sits up and orders him to relax, palms him through his boxers and tells him to take a seat on the couch. His eyes slide closed, hips unconsciously tilting into her hand. She kisses him along his cheekbone. “Sit down, Juggie.”

 

She gathers the empty glasses and stands up, skirting around him. He collapses onto the couch as she sways into the kitchen, her knees a little wobbly. He stares at her bare ass, cheeks scuffed red from writhing against the scratchy velvet. His hand slips under his boxers, giving himself a few gratifying tugs. Fuck the boxers. He pushes them down his hips, toes them off. When she comes back into the living room with two fresh glasses of water, his head is arced against the seatback, hand working over himself, the other spread along the damp seat cushion where she sat moments before.

 

She drinks half the water, keeps the last swallow in her mouth before climbing into his lap, disrupting his movements. Her mouth folds over his, and he opens his lips against hers, the water sliding over his tongue, escaping between their lips. It is nearly sexier than the ice melting against her pussy, only nearly. He doesn’t think he can be any more turned on, his fingers slipping through the folds of her wet cunt, curling up inside her as she orders him to drink directly from the glass. The contrast of his fingers in her tight heat with the ice on his tongue, he just cannot think straight, cannot think past the need to be inside her.

 

Her cheeks are still beet red when she slips her hand over his dick, guides him towards her entrance. He lets his fingers slide from her pussy, a wet trail up over her hipbone to grip the soft flesh of her ass. He struggles to keep his eyes open, needing to see her. His fingers dig into her flesh as she sinks over him, forcing himself to keep still, killing the need to snap his hips up.

 

Her hands curl over his shoulders as she settles, rocking forward. Nothing coherent floats through his brain, but he hears her whisper how good he feels inside her, the words skimming over his ear. He grips the handles of her hipbones and tilts her forward, a shallow thrust, her light groan hot in his ear. It feels stupid to reciprocate the sentiment, but he hears himself say it. He could live inside this feeling. She rises and settles again, shifting her thighs closer to his hips. His head falls back against the seat cushion again. “God, you’re beautiful.”

 

She leans forward, her breasts pressed to his chest, licks his bottom lip before whispering, “I’m also real, Jug.” He needs the reminder, he thinks, the tangibility of her lips pressed to his, tasting the remnants of peach gloss mixed with the salty sweat on her upper lip, the smell of sweat and vanilla, eyes warm and green and drinking him in.

 

The words tumble from his lips without control. “Could have fooled me.”

 

He thinks he mumbles them, that maybe he only thought them, but Betty giggles soft, punctuates his reality by picking up the pace, her hips rocking into his, finger curling in the damp hair at the nape of his neck. “Look at me, Jug.” His eyes open with effort, not realizing he had closed them.

 

“Betty.” She _mms_ like she thinks it is a question, but he only wants to hear her name, hear her respond to it, to know it is really her. His hand slips over her hipbone, his thumb tracing over her pubic bone to dip to her clit. Her hips jolt towards him searching for more friction.

 

He thinks he is going to catch fire. Her humid breath against his lips lets him know she is near enough to steal a kiss, coaxing her tongue into his mouth, biting gently to keep her there. The air feels so close. He feels surrounded by her, by the mugginess of their bodies, the summer heat. He swallows her whimper, presses harder against her clit when her hips snap against him, feels her clench around his dick. God, he’s gonna come. “Close?” He breathes against her lips, jerking her forward by his grip on her hip bone. She returns with _mhmm_ , beyond comprehensible words now, only curses and an inarticulate _Juggie_ , keening on the last syllable as she comes, her entire body spasming against him. He empties himself inside her, hips bucking, half-lidded eyes watching her lose herself against him, because of him.

 

She smooths back the damp hair falling over his brow, still breathless when she declares this was definitely top five, and his softening dick twitches helplessly with the compliment. He counters with a cheeky top three, at least. Her responding smile makes his heart swell with a dull ache, and he kisses her to soothe the pain.

 

He shifts his legs when his thighs start to fall asleep, his foot landing on a soggy book. He doesn’t know if it’s his or hers. If it’s _Gatsby_ , he needed a new copy anyway, but all his thoughtful scribbles would be indecipherable mush. She spots the distaste on his face, wonders if he would like his lap back, but he keeps her planted, shakes his head. When she leans back, she sees his copy of _Gatsby_ under his foot, parts of the damp cover sloughed off. She looks back at him, shifts the blame, “You were the one who knocked over the water.”

 

He cannot be held responsible. “You distracted me by getting naked.”

 

She smiles, rocks her hips forward, creating friction where things are still oversensitive, and he hisses, gripping her hips to keep her still. “Sometimes I think you want me to fall behind in school,” he starts teasing. “First you ripped the cover off my chemistry textbook and now you’re destroying my books.”

 

“That was an accident!” She contends about the chemistry textbook with no excuse for _The Great Gatsby._

 

 “Unless you have something against Fitzgerald. Is this a message? Are you my Zelda?”

 

“If you mean I won’t love you unless you’re well off, then you don’t know me at all, Jughead Jones.” She soft-pedals on the next part. “Besides, you falling behind in school, that’s the very last thing I want, Juggie.” He wants to say he was only teasing, that she is the only reason he hasn’t outright dropped out of school by now.

 

“We should probably start studying for the SATs soon,” she reasons, walking her fingers over his ribs, her cheek sweaty sticky against his shoulder. “Thinking about where we want to go for college.”

 

His hand splays along her lower back, traces the sinewy lines along her spine, the subtle bump-bump of her vertebrae. “I guess I haven’t given it much thought recently. I’m just trying to survive high school at this point, Betty.”

 

Her palm flattens over the scar tissue just below his ribs, still pink and puckered around the edges. She plants the seed of thought in his head, though, beating down the uncertain warble in her voice when she suggests they take a trip over winter or spring break, look at some colleges, bring Archie and Veronica. A part of him is still too terrified to plan that far ahead, to think about their fledgling relationship in terms of months or even years. But, it is the first time she has mentioned her own future with him included somewhere in her timeline, ‘when _we_ should study for the SATs’, ‘where _we_ want to go for college.’

 

His answer is noncommittal but hopeful. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”

 

Her head pops up and she kisses the tip of his chin, his nose. “Good. Great!”

 

She slides off his naked body, sticky skin peeling away from each other. “Shower?”

 

“Let’s just go to the swimming hole.”

 

She considers this, the cutest expression as her eyes narrow, lips pursing, head tilting to the side. “Yeah, there’s no point if we’re just gonna go swimming. Do you think I left my swimsuit here somewhere?”

 

“Not sure. Do you need one?”

 

She arches her brow at him. “I don’t have a bra, Juggie.”

 

“Again, do you need one?”

 

She returns with, “Do you want Archie to get a free show because I didn’t think you were into that. But, you know what, we can talk about it.” She teases, tongue-in-cheek. “I’m open to new things.”

 

He folds. “Check the closet or the hamper. If it isn’t there, we’ll stop by your house, sneak past the sister wives.” He tries not to seem put out by her joking suggestions, but he is. Only a little. She gives him a peck on his miserable mouth and promises she would never share him with anyone else either.

 

She scoops up her phone on the way to the bedroom. He hears her rifling around in the closet while he rustles up a pair of dark boxers and clean jeans from the dresser in the hall. She shouts that she can’t find her bathing suit from the bathroom, the sink running, toilet flushing. “We’ll stop by your house on the way, Betty. Don’t worry about it!” he calls through the hallway. She comes zooming past him naked, padding into the living room to find her clothes.

 

He grabs the cycle keys off the hook, his fingers reverently tapping the empty adjacent hook as he sucks his teeth. Betty’s arms skim along torso as she asks him whether they are taking the motorcycle. He turns to smile at her, kisses her cheek with a smack. “Sure are. Archie and Veronica meeting us there?” She hands him his wife beater from earlier.

 

She grabs the helmet and sets it on her head, peeking up at him, the carved crown level with his eyes. “She hasn’t texted me back yet.” He helps latch the chin strap, makes sure the fit is tight.

 

When they get to the swimming hole, Jughead spies Fred’s Bronco parked near the landing. Veronica and Archie are seated on the tailgate, Veronica’s back turned to Archie directing him how to tie her swimsuit top. Veronica looks over first and her features screw up in a mix of astonishment and disgust. She gestures between the two of them. “Good God, could you two not look so sexed up.” Archie glances around Veronica but quickly looks away, continues to busy himself with his girlfriend’s swimsuit top.

 

Neither of them look remotely clean, figuring jumping into the Sweetwater after a shower would ruin all that hygienic goodwill. Betty blushes, burying her face into Jug’s shoulder, his arm slung across her lower back. He whispers in her ear that Veronica is just jealous.

 

Archie fails to make eye contact with either of them and grabs Veronica to distract her, pulls her shrieking and unsuspecting into the water. Veronica bobs up yelling about ruined makeup, but Archie laughing wrestles her by the hips and throws her further into the swimming hole.

 

Jughead kisses Betty on her temple and asks if she trusts him. “Yes.” He smiles and curls his arm tight along her shoulders. Her hands instinctively grab at him as he falls back into the swimming hole, taking her with him.

 

* * *

 

 

**October 2017**

**Betty**

**Dr. Glass Session #12**

 

“How do you know when you love someone too much?”

 

He scoots to the edge of his seat. “That’s a tough question, Betty.” But, he knows where it leads.

 

“How do you know whether it’s enough or more than enough? How do you know when it becomes unhealthy?” Her fingers are curled over the lip of the armchair, peeling at the faux leather in a place he can’t see. She has been working at it for the last few sessions.

 

“Are we talking about someone in particular?”

 

“I’m talking about me.”

 

He hides it well, his disappointment. “Are you feeling overwhelmed by something? Or someone?”

 

She leans her chin on her hands, her elbows two hard points digging into her knees. “I guess I’ve been feeling a little crazy.” She tries to remember who told her the elbow is the hardest part of the human body. “That things that should bother me just don’t.”

 

“What kinds of things?”

 

“Feelings. Behaviors.” She keeps it purposefully vague, and he tries not to wince. He covers it by removing his glasses, massaging the bridge of his nose. “I’m trying to recognize when love becomes too much, whether it should have limits, boundaries, and I can’t find a reason. I don’t think it should.”

 

“Relationships should have boundaries. Without them, society falls into disrepair.” Of course it does.

 

“Do we need to learn to say no to each other?”

 

“I think that is fundamental in any healthy relationship, Betty.”

 

She has never given it much thought, but now that it’s on the front burner, she realizes the thought of saying no feels antithetical to everything she is. It is a tough word in Betty’s book, _no_ , a word that rarely leaves her mouth, especially where Jug is concerned. With this word comes the thought of placing limits around Jug, around herself, around how they relate to one another – it sounds like nonsense. She doesn’t see a limit to their relationship partially because Jughead doesn’t. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Jughead himself has no emotional boundaries because he is emotionally starved. They both are, she admits. Only to herself.

 

But, she has no concrete proof, no legitimate reason to say no. Everything, the carving in the treehouse, Dilton Doiley’s drunken and vague allegations, it is all merely speculation. If she voices her concerns to Dr. Glass, he will ask if she feels violated, if she feels like her trust has been betrayed. These are the things that should bother her, she knows, but when the concerns first popped up, bothered was not on her list of reactions.

 

She can take a step back and look at the whole picture. Dr. Glass doesn’t have nearly as much information at his disposal, and he will misuse the knowledge he does have. She knows Jughead, and given what she knows, this new aspect doesn’t surprise her.

 

His self-imposed social isolation, his cutting sardonicism, he does not relate to others well, if at all. His pop culture references are met with either dead air or unmitigated exasperation. He is one of three students at Riverdale High that lives on the Southside, and the other two playact to get by, hide the fact they live on the ‘wrong’ side of town. His temper and biting remarks have earned him a crack in the mug on more than one occasion.

 

Most of all, Jughead only connects with two people, Archie and Betty. And when those two people started to drift away, she could imagine how unmoored he must have felt. To see Archie easily consorting with the jocks who bully Jug, singing and playing guitar for anyone whom would listen without conscience, flirting and laughing and socializing like it was the easiest thing in the world. And then Betty gone for three months on an internship, so much dead space developing in their already tenuous relationship, held together only by the flaky glue that was Archie Andrews.

 

To feel stuck in place. To feel apart and never a part. No mother, no sister, no home, just dear old dad, a drunk and a criminal. Wouldn’t she do the same to feel closer, to feel connected? If she condemns Jug, doesn’t she condemn herself?

 

“I can’t say no until I understand why.” He prompts her for more, elaboration. “There are still these blanks I don’t have the answers to.”

 

“Have you asked the questions yet?” She looks at the ground, the alternating blue and grey squares like a chessboard. “You have to communicate, Betty.”

 

“What if I don’t like the answers?” Worse, what if they still don’t bother her as much as they should. The only pressing question she really has is when it started. Maybe if she finds out the when, then she will understand the why, and not just one but countless whys.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m still tickled by the positive response to this story, thank you. Again, any feedback is much appreciated, and I hope everyone likes the direction. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Oh, and I'm planning on nine chapters, tentatively. Subject to change.


	4. just some rage and three kinds of yes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for everyone's feedback and comments! 
> 
> Another gigantic thank you to heartunsettledsoul and imserpentking for beta'ing this monster. 
> 
> Does anyone remember the waiter they showed once at the beginning of season one, the adorable spunky soda jerk who snapped his fingers with a cute little quip? Just about tickled me pink. That dude needed more screen time. I pay homage to him in this chapter.

**October 2017**

**Betty**

**Rest My Chemistry by Interpol**

 

She stands there long enough and still enough to become invisible to the motion sensors, the glass doors sliding towards her like a pneumatic-powered guillotine. When she flinches, she has enough momentum, enough substance, the sensors notice and the doors open, yet her feet will not move forward the six inches it would take to be out of the line of fire.

 

Mr. Klump guides the little girl by the hand while directing the overloaded grocery cart towards the double doors where Betty stands frozen. A boy, maybe ten or eleven, hops up on the side of the cart, the soles of his sneakers lighting up in flashes of blue and red like a cop car. This makes it harder for his father to maneuver them towards the exit.

 

“Mr. Klump, how are you?” It comes out too chipper, overly bright, and she knows there is probably a manic, off-putting shine in her eyes.

 

Mr. Klump negotiates the caravan to a controlled stop before the nose of the cart crashes into Betty’s stomach. She feels the air pressure change around her again when the sliding doors whoosh open.

 

“Betty. Hi.” His greeting is stilted, but she barely registers it. The little girl looks at her with Midge’s hazel eyes.

 

Betty feels fissures forming in her façade. “Can I help with your groceries?”

 

Mr. Klump fishes a five-dollar bill from his pocket and gives it to his son. “Take your sister and play the claw machine for a bit. Stay where I can see you.” He watches his son take his little sister’s hand and guide her towards the toy machine. When he turns back to Betty, she concentrates on keeping her fingers extended. “Betty, I–”

 

She cuts him off, “Please don’t. I’m just–” It’s like word vomit on the tip of her tongue. She glances at the boy feeding the five-dollar bill into the machine, his little sister pointing animatedly towards a purple giraffe or the large Pooh bear in the corner, her nose eagerly pressed to the glass, fogging it up around her baby-fat cheeks. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry for bothering you.” She clamps her teeth around the rest of it threatening to spill out, something else, something awful crawling up her throat behind the words she manages to get out.

 

She skirts around Mr. Klump, and he almost grabs her, his hand outstretched. “Betty, wait.” She can’t.

 

Her distress slams the bathroom stall door closed, the line of particle board walls rattling, and shame radiates through her knees when they hit the hard linoleum, acid bile burning up her throat and barely making it into the toilet bowl. She flattens her palms against the floor and leans her body weight into them, forcing her fingers to remain extended, starving the thing inside her that demands blood.

 

She’s been so good lately, no major mishaps. The linoleum is cold against her palms, grimy. She can feel it building up in her nail beds as she digs her fingers into the tile, filth that would get inside her if she let instinct dictate her actions.

 

Her phone dings with a text, and she groans, spitting into the toilet bowl. She falls back on her knees, feet folded up underneath her, reaches into her back pocket. _Sour gummy worms_ , it reads. Jug. She laughs short. It’s hard to do when the inside of her face is all gummed up.

 

 _Let me know next time when she comes out,_ he’d said. Jug couldn’t possibly mean this, what she thought she was getting under control. She closes her eyes so tight she sees stars, a panicked gasp escaping, hitching at the base of her throat that still burns from the bile. The muscles in her neck and shoulders lock up, her fingers aching as she clutches the phone between her hands. Dr. Glass in her head, _count back from ten, Elizabeth, slowly, and start over every time a bad thought pops up_.

 

“Miss,” someone calls timidly from the entrance to the women’s bathroom. “Is everything okay?”

 

Betty slides her phone back into her pocket and reaches for the toilet handle, hoping the sound of the flush will cover up the warble in her voice. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she calls back, wrapping some toilet paper around her hand to dab her mouth. “Everything’s fine. I think I ate something bad.”

 

“Okay,” the clerk says. “Please let us know if you need anything. We have medications for settling stomachs in aisle fourteen.”

 

Betty laughs to herself sadly, thanks the clerk. She waits until she hears the door close again before blowing her nose. She leans back against the stall wall, swiping her sweater sleeves under her watery eyes. They come away with streaks of black.

 

She digs in her front pocket for the list of snacks. Tonight is their weekly movie night. She smiles. Sour gummy worms are already on the list, but he felt it was important enough to ask a second time, like she would forget, like she wouldn’t make a list and check it twice.

 

Ten minutes later, she wanders through the aisles thinking at least the Klumps were leaving as she was coming, imagining running into them over and over throughout the grocery store, her own personal hell. She wouldn’t have made it through the trip. She would have overpaid for sour gummy worms at the gas station. _You’re not dealing with anything_ , she tells herself, tossing a package of sour gummy worms in her shopping basket. _You’re not making up for anything_. She is a Cooper through and through, never dealing, masters of self-loathing repression.

 

After tracking down the rest of the snacks on the list, she peruses aisle fourteen but buys a travel-sized bottle of mouthwash instead of TUMS. The clerk at the register recognizes her from the bathroom and gives Betty a concerned look when she only finds junk food and mouthwash in the shopping basket. Betty grinds her teeth around an overly friendly smile, manages to ask for a bag without her jaw clicking.

 

She bursts into Jug’s trailer and drops the plastic grocery bag on the couch before crawling across the cushions towards him, kicking off her shoes in the process. He has a stack of DVDs on the coffee table, deliberating over which ones to play tonight, but she swipes them aside and takes a seat in his lap, her corduroy skirt bunching up her thighs. “Hey,” he protests but his hands curl around her waist as she presses again him, bringing her knees tight along his hips. She plays connect the dots along his jawline with her lips, her hands tangling up in his flannel.

 

“Hurt me, Jug,” she whispers in his ear, her hands folding over the tops of his and urging his grip to hold her tighter around the waist, make it harder for her to breathe.

 

He sounds heady, turned on, like he isn’t quite sure he heard her right. His mind doesn’t register the words, but his body subconsciously responds to her prompting touch, his hands clutching her tighter, drawing her closer. “What?” He is already rising to the occasion between her legs, and she rolls her hips forward, groans with the friction against the stiff bridge of his jeans.

 

“I want you to hurt me,” she repeats. “Please.”

 

He hears her clearly this time. “What? Betty, I’m not going to do that.” He gently tries to put some distance between their bodies, but she fights him, hooking her hands behind his neck.

 

“I want you to.”

 

“I don’t want to.”

 

She needs the ache inside her head to be reflected physically. The pain kinks every thread of thought until her whole mind is shot, gnarled beyond comprehension. She needs him to twist her up, bind her, manipulate her, take control of her body so she can control the pain of her thoughts. If she can make the pain real on the outside, then maybe it wouldn’t feel so surreal inside her, an imagined misery. If she can put the hurt where it needs to go, on her person, then maybe it will help the guilt bleed away. “Please, Juggie.”

 

“I’m not going to, Betty.” He angles his face away from her, trying to make her look him in the eye, but she busies herself under his jaw, nipping his ear. “That’s not how this works,” he tries.

 

“That’s how I want it to work,” she snaps, finally looking at him.

 

All the impetus from before drains away. She can feel it between her legs. She is horny with agony, and he is flaccid with worry.

 

“Betty, tell me what happened.” He attempts to cup her cheek, anesthetize the situation with some earnest affection, speaking softly like he would to a child, and it feels patronizing.

 

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” She tugs him forward by his flannel none too gently. “Please, I want to play.” This is too slow. She needs him rough, like he was the night of the ill-fated birthday, dragging her into the bathroom, his palm hard against her mouth, barely able to breathe with his forearm braced so tight across her chest.

 

The room swirls about her, disorienting as he swings her around and pins her to the couch. The movement knocks the grocery bag onto the floor, spilling the snacks across the carpet with the movies. He presses his palms flush to hers, preventing her nails from cutting red smiles, prohibiting her from grabbing him. “Stop.” Her inhale is shaky, excited, liking this, her mouth reaching for his but he leans away. “Calm down.” She needs just a little more pressure against her hands, something like an ache forming in her wrist bones from his weight, from her struggling. “Breathe.” She exaggerates deep breathing but devolves into hopped-up giggles. “Betty, stop.”

 

“Juggie,” she purrs, winding her legs around his hips and dragging him down, but he plants his knees on the frame of the couch, resists her.

 

“Are you on something?” There is nothing left inside her besides the ache he won’t indulge, not in the way she wants.

 

“I want to be on you,” she urges, nudging his hipbones with her knees.  

 

“10,” he starts.

 

It is like cold water on her nerves. “No, Jughead.”

 

“10.”

 

“I’m not going to do it,” she vows.

 

“10.” He presses his forehead to hers and repeats the mandate, “Breathe.” Only then does she realize the irregularity of her breaths, each one snagging at the base of her throat that she can only get out small stifled gasps. “Come on, Betty, breathe slowly. Think about each one.”

 

He keeps her restrained until she calms down by the third round of tens.

 

“How old are we, Jug?” Ancient, she thinks, but too young for this, too young to feel something like this.

 

He seems to deliberate on the question, a serious look on his face as he observes her underneath him, searching for any remnant anxiety in the back of her eyes. “Too young to think about it,” he decides, releasing her hands.

 

Too young to worry about it, he means, sitting up and changing the subject. “What movie do you want to watch?” He has a whole suite of film noir scattered at the foot of the couch. “How about something where they get the bad guy in the end?”

 

She grabs his chin and directs it towards her, kisses him on the mouth. “I love you.”

 

He leaves her on the couch, scooping up the pile of DVDs to take with him over to the television. He doesn’t tell her which movie he chooses, feeding a disc into the player.

“Do you have a session this week?” He asks as he takes a seat next to her, letting her curl up against his side, slinging his arm comfortably along her shoulders. This isn’t something they talk about often. She doesn’t tell him about what goes on in her sessions, and he doesn’t ask, but the occasion calls for it. His concern calls for it.

 

“Tomorrow,” she tells him. Honestly, she forgot about it, that there is someone there for this, someone besides Jug. Dr. Glass gave her his number in case of emergency, assuring her she could call him if she needed, but it didn’t occur to her to call him. She came straight to Jughead’s trailer instead.

 

She kisses his cheekbone, the curve of his jaw, but once her lips touch his earlobe peeking out from under his beanie, he tips his head away. “Nope, you’re not getting any tonight. You’re gonna watch this and sleep in your own bed.” Because if he lets her stay over, there is a good chance he will wake up in the middle of the night with his pants around his ankles. He is a heavy sleeper, she knows, when he actually sleeps.

 

“Like a big girl?” she teases.

 

“Stop being cute, Cooper.” He kisses her hard on the side of her head when the opening scene unfolds on the screen. “Did you get the sour gummy worms?”

 

* * *

 

 

**October 2017**

**Betty**

**Dr. Glass Session #14**

 

She wanted him to control her, and he did. He just took a different tack this time, one that didn’t involve sex or pain.

 

She doesn’t know how to talk about these things with Dr. Glass. Something fears what he would think, what he would say, that she might be too young to experiment like this with a boy, that she might not fully understand the repercussions of a relationship of this caliber, that it might get out of hand. And it nearly did. What could have happened had he complied? How would she have felt after? Better, maybe, probably not, probably worse. And how could she have held it against him since she asked for it?

 

She was fully prepared for it. Or she thought she was prepared, because when had Jughead ever denied her requests? Regardless of consequences, no matter how morally questionable.

 

And she wanted him more when he joked she wouldn’t be getting in his pants that night. She didn’t think it was possible to love him more until he said no, and it surprised her. Maybe he knew what she needed better than she did herself because yes, she would have felt awful afterward. Awful for asking, awful for putting him in that position, and awful more still for the inevitable resentment she would have felt towards him, towards herself for making him complicit in how she harms herself.

 

It comforted her to know he wouldn’t truly hurt her even if she gave him express permission to do so. It comforted her to know Jughead could recognize the difference, that he could tell when it was appropriate to play and when it wasn’t. It made her feel safe even when she couldn’t catch the difference for herself.  

 

Could she explain this to Dr. Glass? Could she say it the right way?

“What’s on the agenda today?”

 

“Guilt.” Another big hurdle for the good doctor.

 

“Your guilt?” She nods. He clarifies now, her feelings or the feelings of others. Betty sometimes fails to make these distinctions. “Why do you feel guilty?”

 

“Did you go to the town’s Jubilee celebration last year, Dr. Glass?”

 

“No, I had to go to Florida for a funeral.” It sounds like a mid-life crisis mystery novel title, something without guns or sultry intrigue, like a Woody Allen movie, witty but awkward dialogue amongst the palms and blue hairs. “My wife went, though.” He went to Florida alone. Yes, a Woody Allen movie with some good old-fashioned middle-aged adultery. She has been spending too much time with Jughead, she thinks with an internal laugh. “What happened at the Jubilee?”

 

“The mayor wanted me to give a speech. I helped expose Clifford Blossom’s extensive drug running operation. She thought that warranted a speech. She didn’t extend this courtesy to Jughead, who had helped, more than helped. He took the photos that we gave to the Sheriff.” She can tell Dr. Glass wants to focus on that for a moment, Betty’s resentment towards the town’s head political figure for her treatment of Jughead Jones, but it isn’t the point of the story. It isn’t the point of the guilt. Maybe a little. The snowballing of events following the Jubilee celebration led to some tragic consequences for Jughead. Things could have been so much worse, but the reality of what happened was, in its own right, something horrific.

 

He lets the subject go for now. “What did you talk about in this speech?”

 

“The town felt changed since Jason Blossom’s murder, and the circumstances of his death, this all happened under our noses. I talked about how I didn’t understand everything that had happened, everything we had allowed to happen that led to the murder of a teenager. I talked about how as a town we had to take care of each other, look out for one another. I wished we could do better. I knew we could do better. I didn’t know that would set him off.”

 

“The Black Hood,” Dr. Glass prompts.

 

“My father,” she corrects. They were one and the same, but he was her father first and she will never think of one without the other again.

 

“Do you feel responsible for what your father did after the Jubilee?”

 

“He told me flat out in a letter that everything was for me.” How much clearer could it have been?

 

Dr. Glass waits for her to continue, to come around to the right conclusion on her own, the right kind of progress. Betty knows the direction she should take. She cannot convince herself. Dr. Glass pushes her, like a mother hen nudging a chick back in line. “Everyone makes choices, Betty, about who they want to be. Your father made his choice. Does this have a bearing on your own?” It is inside her though, the capability.

 

“You know the difference between right and wrong.” No, that isn’t true anymore. She believed it for the longest time, the objective black and white of right and wrong, but it was never true. If anything, this whole year has removed the rose-colored blinders, breached the concreteness of justice. Morality is only shades of grey, and each problem deserves its own original solution. The handling of her brother’s Talented Mr. Ripley was a perfect example of that. “What your father did, is it your fault?”

 

With his leading questions, he wants her to say no, like a good girl. That is what she is supposed to say. Say it even if she doesn’t mean it. Say it until she believes it. Say it even if she never does. “It’s not my fault.” It is like a heartbeat flatlining in her head, no substance behind it, dead weight on her psyche.

 

The control levees break, and she buries her face in her hands. “I’m the worst kind of masochist.”

 

“Betty,” Dr. Glass calls, beckoning her out of the safe confines of her palms where no one can see the fissures in her perfect façade, her plastic smile wavering back and forth between a grimace and a grin. “Why are you feeling guilty?”

 

He took their daughter. She was Betty’s age. He tried once, a near miss, but he finished the job. Did the Klumps feel safe, blessed? Did he follow through in the theatre because he knew they felt lucky?

 

Betty is not perfect. She was not perfect when her father killed Midge. She was never perfect, but she was dishonest about it where Midge was unabashedly open about her wants, her preferences. Midge wanted to be a teenager, to flirt and play around and have fun, carefree in all the ways Betty could not be. Do Midge’s parents regret letting her act like that now? Do they feel properly chastised? Wasn’t that Betty’s father’s intent all along?

 

And Midge’s little brother and sister forced to grow up without their big sister, without their mother. _Stay where I can see you._ Something any parent would say, a customary phrase without much weight, without much real concern, but Betty could hear the mounting anxiety behind the statement. He said it and he damn well meant it, and it broke Betty’s heart to know Mr. Klump would imagine the worst any time he didn’t have eyes on his children. No, not imagine, know. He would know with that momentary blindness his children might be gone forever, disappearing behind the curtain and never walking out the other side.  

 

 _And you enabled him. You fed him on Nick and Chic and the Sugar Man_ , she thinks.

 

The consequences of her father’s actions are too numerous to count and the reminders exist in every corner of this town. Every time she sees Fred Andrews slow down on the last step of the ladder and rub his abdomen, or when Archie nostalgically plays a song he wrote for his music teacher. Each time the Vixens practice an old routine, forgetting about the gap in girls, an obvious space in Cheryl’s flawless choreography. Even when Betty is with Jughead and peeling his shirt up his stomach, a moment of intimacy marred by the painful souvenir marking the space just above his navel. There are smudges of her father’s mementos wherever she turns.

 

“Your compassion needs limits, Betty.” She hurts herself because she hurt others. She hurts herself so she won’t hurt others. “And you need to show yourself some compassion.”

 

* * *

**November 2016**

**Jughead**

**Cold Little Heart by Michael Kiwanuka**

He put this off long enough, he thinks. Doing this while the news is still fresh, he calls it courage. He keeps his hands out of his pockets to show he has nothing to hide, his shame plain in his open palms. “I’m sorry.”

 

She looks pulled by invisible strings when she skirts around the cafeteria table. He expects something with a little more bite, but her initial slaps are tepid, timid, as if unsure she can get away with striking him in public. He keeps his hands at his sides, fingers stretched wide and closing his eyes tight when her palm comes back round. Each slap, thump to his chest, he gets a whiff of cherry maple syrup with the spontaneous violence of her movements, each rush and dip of her emotions landing haphazard strikes on different parts of his body – rage for his cheekbone, loss for his left shoulder, mourning on his stomach, resentment, disappointment, confusion on each limb. And then, when no one has intervened yet, she punches him in the mouth.

 

He opens his eyes to the blatant surprise on her face. This girl has mastered the art of silent crying, and though there is a hint of dampness near her eyes, the tears haven’t fallen yet.

 

He licks the corner of his mouth where her ring caught. “You punch like your brother.” And her features fracture into a blind rage. He wants to crack her like an egg, incite her to liberate every ugly thing she has bottled up inside. He needs to feel it, the brunt of her anger, her grief because he doesn’t understand his own. He doesn’t feel entitled to his own disordered emotions, but she deserves this. He deserves this, more than this.

 

Kevin Keller has Cheryl by the waist before she can start kicking, wrestling her away from Jughead. He hears Cheryl sobbing, and slides his hand across his face, feels his eyes puffing up from the need to cry, too. It is all he feels like doing nowadays.

 

* * *

 

 

The water pressure is weak. It takes a few seconds to pool enough in his hands to splash his face. He wets a paper towel and presses it to his cheekbone, dabs the corner of his mouth, and it comes away with a small spot of blood.

 

Over the intercom, Principal Weatherbee requests his presence in the front office.

 

He hears the bathroom door open, sees Archie’s red hair in the mirror over his shoulder. “Hey, man.”

 

Jughead tugs his beanie down over his ears. His neck is flushed red, his ears tipped with shame.

 

Archie asks when he is coming home, that his dad can only stall the social worker for so long before she decides to put him in a group home, or worse. Fosters are worse, Jug thinks, but group homes come with their own baggage. When he was twelve, his mother left the first time and his dad was AWOL, so he spent a couple of months in a group home in Centerville. He had to go to the middle school there, so it was two months away from Archie and Betty, but at least he had three square meals and heat. It was worse for Jellybean. She spent that time in a foster, a religious couple on the outskirts of town, came back with Wednesday Addams braids wearing a homemade sack of a dress.

 

“Jug, just come home, okay. We’ll figure it out,” Archie tries, standing in front of the bathroom door so no one can walk in on their moment, but Jughead is not in the mood for a foster brother hallmark moment with Archie Andrews.

 

“Just leave me alone for a little while, Arch.”

 

* * *

 

In light of the cafeteria debacle, Principal Weatherbee thinks it would be prudent if Jughead takes a leave of absence from school and returns at the start of next week, that this may give the students sufficient enough time to cool down, that this was in his best interest, that it was for his safety.

 

“I’m not saying any of this is your fault, son,” Principal Weatherbee promises him. There is lead in Jug’s chest when Weatherbee says _son_ , wincing on the loaded word. The principal makes note of that, backtracks. “But, I think this may help diffuse the situation. I will work here on my end to make sure you can come back without any further problems.”

 

He asks Jughead if he has any questions regarding this decision. It feels uncomfortably formal, and Jughead can only nod, wondering what the principal could do to improve his circumstances. Prior to his father’s arrest, Jughead’s presence at Riverdale High was tolerated. At best, he was ignored. Now, he is an outright target. “Make no mistake, though, I expect you at first bell on Monday morning, Mr. Jones.” Jughead wants to bet the principal how far he would make it to his first class before being accosted.

 

Between periods, Betty finds him in the _Blue and Gold_ office collecting some research for the next issue, a few library books with loans that need to be renewed.

 

“I’ll get all your assignments,” she offers. “We can study at night. I’ll keep you caught up.”

 

“Where would we study?” He wonders, entertaining the idea.

 

She smiles, relaxing when he turns to give her a hopeful look. He thinks he would do anything to keep her smiling, but he needs more practice. His track record this past week has not been great.

 

“You’re not banned from the public library, Juggie.” Flashcards and Betty’s neat notes, seated close in a forgotten corner of the Riverdale library, watching her teeth worry the ends of her purple pen, and maybe he could pick up two milkshakes to go from Pop’s to sip while they study. Maybe in that dim nook of the public library with the written comfort and published confidence of a thousand voices that came before him, he could figure out the perfect combination of words to tell her an exact narration of his feelings, that this narration would be made manifest in her returned smile. Maybe within the hidden spaces of public places, he could build up enough courage to finally kiss her, taste the strawberries and cream of the milkshake, feel the smooth spiral of her ponytail in his hand as she kissed him back.

 

“Not yet,” he sighs.

 

Both her hands curl around his shoulders and rock him back and forth, a gentle scold. “You have me, Jug,” she assures him. “I’ll always be on your side.”

 

He wants to kiss her right then, but the third-period bell rings, and the difference between them feels so absolute, practically palpable. As the bell rings above their heads, the spell breaks in her eyes, too. She gets to go to class, slide into the easy wash and repeat of secondary education without a dozen eyes burning on the back of her head, and he has to figure out where he will disappear off to, maybe Pop’s, on a school day, dreads the inevitable first question out of Mr. Tate’s concerned mouth.

 

“I’ll text you,” she tells him, her hands sliding from his shoulders, and he clings to the memory of her touch, focuses on the feeling of the weight of her hands as she grabs her backpack, turns to leave the _Blue and Gold_ office for biology. “Be safe, Juggie.”

 

He gives her a tight smile that melts away when the door closes behind her.

 

* * *

 

 

He remembers covering for Archie at dinner, something about the football team meeting at Pop’s after the Jubilee. He couldn’t lie for the redhead when Fred knocked on their bedroom door, finding Jughead sleeping on the floor and Archie’s bed still made from the day before. Completely bypassing the absence of his son, the blatantly missed curfew, he asked if Jug wanted to join him for breakfast at Pop’s. And somehow Jughead knew that Fred was going to drag Archie from wherever he was (with Veronica), and perhaps that was a conversation best suited between father and son, sans the toady foster. He politely declined, arguing he needed the few extra hours of sleep, which was true. Jug stayed up the previous night reviewing his father’s plea deal until three in the morning, and it didn’t look ideal.

 

He didn’t know by midmorning the following day that while his biological father’s transgressions were about to be weighed pound for pound by the justice system, his foster father would be suspended between life and death on a hospital gurney, but Jughead knew the scales of fate rarely tipped favorably in his direction. So while he could offer optimistic platitudes about Fred being a fighter or Archie being a hero, his stomach was cramping with unease, every worst-case scenario racing through his pessimistic brain. How much blood had Fred lost? How long had it taken Archie to get to the hospital? Why didn’t the ambulance show up sooner? What else could they possibly be doing in a town as small as Riverdale where nothing bad ever happened? Sorry, where nothing bad used to happen. Maybe they weren’t yet accustomed to this new standard of town-wide bad luck. Maybe they didn’t understand the level of urgency when the call came over dispatch. Gunshot wound? People didn’t get shot in Riverdale.

 

The redhead looks like he got too much splash-back from Carrie’s prom queen mishap, and Jughead winces from the insensitive thought. He doesn’t know how else to cope. His shit karma keeps coming around to fuck him sideways, and now his best friend and his legal guardian are caught in the crossfire.

 

He never knew how wide his wingspan was until it encompassed all three in one embrace, expanding enough to wrap his hands around the girls’ opposite shoulders with the redhead sandwiched between all four of them, heads buried together in an almost sacramental sort of solidarity. He didn’t know why he ended up being the one holding them all together, but he was honored that he could, terrified but proud that his arms could reach wide enough.

 

He spends the rest of the morning raiding the vending machines to dull the ache in his belly, the ache he doesn’t want to name until Fred clears surgery. He tries to feed Archie chips and candy, but his best friend takes one bite off a Snickers bar and looks like he might throw up. When Keller shows up to interview Archie, Jughead can’t help but mutter, “Oh look, it’s Sheriff Useless.” He swallows a groan when he feels Veronica’s elbow sharp in his side. Archie still lets him sit in on the interview.

 

Veronica takes Archie home to clean up and get Fred a fresh set of clothes. Betty and Jughead return to the scene of the crime to hunt down Fred’s wallet.

 

On the ride over, Jughead drops down a mental rabbit hole he is not prepared to fully process, forced to consider what would happen if Fred didn’t make it. His mom doesn’t want him in Toledo. Fred called her to say he was applying to be Jughead’s foster, and his mother could not have shrugged off the responsibility faster. He didn’t want to go to Toledo anyways, but the rejection still stung. And now with Fred on the chopping block, what will happen to Jughead? Where can he go?

 

Sitting in the parking lot outside of Pop’s, Betty kills the engine. Neither of them makes a move to enter the diner. Betty jingles the keys in her hands as they both stare at the chrome-lined double doors, a smeared red handprint across the glass and handles from where Archie hauled his gutshot father out into the lot and into the backseat of the Bronco.

 

“Are you scared?” She asks without looking at him, sounding anxious herself.

 

“Of what?” There are so many things to be scared of nowadays that she really has to specify.

 

“I mean with everything that’s happened. Losing your dad and maybe losing another with Fred. Are you scared?” How does she do that?

 

Jughead’s father is still alive and intact and a shit-bird. Fred Andrews is a good man, a moral compass for the Riverdale community. He is everything a boy could want or need in a father, and Archie, despite his faults of which there are few, doesn’t deserve to lose a father. No one deserves to lose a father, more so a father like Fred Andrews. The world could not possibly be that cruel. “I’m scared for Archie,” he decides.

 

Betty looks like she wants to reach for him, but she keeps her hands in her lap, fiddling with the keys. “You can be, too, Jug.”

 

Later that night he attempts to get Archie to go to bed. Attempts and fails.

 

“Hey, don’t do anything rash, okay, Archie. Just sleep, man. You’ll think better when you sleep,” he says, trying to tug the baseball bat out of the redhead’s grip.

 

“Why? You never do.” Archie pulls back on the bat.

 

“True, but I have a lot of practice at functioning on little to no sleep.”

 

“You’re not the only insomniac in Riverdale, Jug.”

 

“Yeah, maybe it’s contagious,” Jug jokes. He and Archie have been _de facto_ roommates for the better part of the last two months. When Archie finally complained about the artificial light from Jughead’s laptop, Jug migrated to the living room or garage to write at all hours of the night and ended up sleeping wherever he landed half the time. Fred had been in the talks of fixing up the den or the garage so Jug could have his own space, or have Archie move into the garage while Jughead moved into Archie’s room. Jughead liked that end of the deal better. Archie could work on his music and boxing without bothering the rest of the house while Jughead would have an unhindered view of the Cooper house across the side yard.

 

He doesn’t manage to convince Archie to put away the baseball bat and follow him upstairs. Jughead marches up the stairs and finds Mary on the second-floor landing with an empty tray in her hands. She gives Jughead an anxious look, her gaze flickering to the warm glow from the foyer lights where Archie perches to have the best vantage of both entry points into the Andrews house. “You’re here,” Jughead stresses, trying to sound reassuring, grateful, but he feels a little awkward comforting Mrs. Andrews. “And I’ll go down there later to check on him. He’ll pass out by midnight.”

 

Mary smiles, but it doesn’t touch the worry creasing around her eyes, Archie’s puppy brown eyes. “You’re here, too, Jughead.” As if that makes all the difference.

 

* * *

 

“You finally slept with someone age-appropriate. Kudos, Arch,” Jug congratulates, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

 

Betty gives him a look that says he is not helping. After only a week, Archie and Veronica’s relationship is already on the rocks, a mirror image of Fred and Hermione in the wake of the shooting. “There isn’t any evidence that your father’s shooting and Ms. Grundy’s murder are connected, Archie,” Betty disputes.

 

The expression on Archie’s face wonders whether the universe could be cruel enough to place two unrelated tragedies so close to one another, but Jughead knows better. He watches Archie’s face harden with stubborn resolve. “I’m sure of it.” There is a kind of optimism there, Jughead thinks. The universe is not as indifferent as it would have Archie believe. For Archie, there is no such thing as coincidence, and he would do anything to prove it.

 

Lucky he has Betty and Jughead, and Archie doesn’t even have to ask. Betty tilts her head towards the exit and gives Jughead a raised brow. “Hey, Archie, are you going to be okay by yourself for a little while?” Jughead asks because Veronica isn’t coming over any time soon and Mary Andrews is catching up on some cases in the den.

 

“Where are you guys going?” Archie wonders, looking between Betty and Jughead.

 

“ _Blue and Gold_ stuff,” Betty lies, half-truths. “I’ll have him back by dinner, I promise.” She gives Archie an impromptu hug, and it looks like everything the redhead needs at that moment. Jughead watches Archie’s hand affectionately slip over Betty’s waist to her shoulder, and Betty pats the fade of red hair at the nape of his neck.

 

 _Goddamnit_. Jughead swings open the front door to let in a blast of wintery air. “We’re burning daylight, Cooper.” This isn’t anything he is unused to, but the effortless platonic affection between Archie and Betty still chafes. Relegated to the peanut gallery for the Archie and Betty show once again, it amazes him how easily he dissolves into their background even when he knows she will be following him out of this house.   

 

Betty touches Archie’s cheek. “You need a shave, Arch.” The bruises under Archie’s eyes are starting to rival Jughead’s. They have become insomniac buddies, taking shifts throughout the night, and it reminds Jughead of their childhood stakeouts in the treehouse when the three of them would switch off on lookout. In those days, Archie used to bail early, leaving Betty and Jughead to pick up the slack. Now, it is a chore convincing Archie to give up the watch.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you still convinced it’s Hiram?” Jughead wonders, eyes skimming the shelves of trinkets in Ms. Grundy’s living room.

 

Betty replaces the police tape on the jamb before closing the front door so none of the neighbors will think anything suspicious.

 

They parked the station wagon around the block and skirted the tree line behind the houses to get to Grundy’s. Jughead stood in Grundy’s flower bed below the porch landing watching the street for eavesdroppers while Betty picked the lock, thankful for the overgrown trees surrounding the front of the small two-bedroom house.

 

“You’re the one who brought up Hiram Lodge first,” Betty contends, sifting through the junk mail on Grundy’s entry table. Jughead feels weird attributing possession to a dead woman, but it is her name on the envelopes, on the plaque beneath the mailbox, her face in the photos along the fireplace.

 

He turns to Betty whose gaze traces the small numbered stickers placed around the living room, zeroing in on the easily overlooked Jackson Pollock of blood on the hardwood floor in the center of the room. The two of them are getting good at this. “Are you getting flashbacks?” When they broke into Grundy’s car only a few months ago.

 

She glances at him briefly, in the middle of forming a working theory. “Yeah, a little.”

 

“What is it?”

 

Betty crouches next to the blood, the number one. “Whoever did this didn’t plan it very well.” She shines her flashlight on the dried up blood on the hardwood floor, and Jughead sees a smeared partial boot print in one of the drops.

 

“Yeah, I got that feeling, too.”

 

Betty finally gives him more solid attention. “Is that why you asked about Hiram earlier?”

 

Jughead riffs, “This feels sloppy. Hiram would have hired a professional. Even the shooting at Pop’s felt sloppy. He didn’t take any money. I don’t think this guy knows what he’s doing.” Present tense because no one thinks the killer is finished.

 

“Kevin said he killed her with a cello bow.”

 

Jughead sits back on his haunches opposite her, the evidence between them. “Do you think he knew the significance of the bow?”

 

Betty’s eyes skirt around the living room, her flashlight tracing her gaze to illuminate different objects – a fire poker, heavy antique lamps, a letter opener on the desk. “Of all the things he could have chosen to kill her with, he used a cello bow.”

 

Both jump at the same time to the sound of a car door slamming, heads swiveling to the windows where blue and red lights flash. Betty curses, and Jughead would think it was cute if he didn’t know what comes with blue and red lights. They hear the tell-tale singular _bloop_ of the police siren, a warning chirp.

 

“Crap, what do we do?” Jughead stays crouched, his head angling towards the back door. “Make a run for the backyard?”

 

Boots clipping up the porch steps are quickly followed by police tape being stripped away and the front door handle being jiggled, unsurprised to find it open.

 

“Betty, backyard?” He tries again, about to grab her by the arm.

 

“Be cool, Jug,” she orders, clicking her flashlight off and stuffing it back in her jacket pocket as the front door swings wide. Both of them shoot to standing with their hands up as a Maglite spotlights them in the middle of the living room.

 

* * *

 

 

Gutter water seeps through the canvas of his hi-tops, and he spreads his legs out along the blacktop to avoid the worst of the puddles. He shifts his shoulders to get more comfortable with his hands cuffed behind him, accidentally knocking into Betty.

 

The lone Greendale police officer was following up on a wellness check three blocks down the road and saw Betty’s flashlight in the front window as he passed Grundy’s house.

 

“How old are you two?” Betty dumbly stares at the cop and Jughead plays stupid in solidarity. “Okay, minors,” the officer decides, scribbling in his notebook. “Names?” Another pair of mute looks. “What were you two doing in there? You do know it is an active crime scene, right?”

 

“Morbid curiosity,” Jughead lets slip, and Betty leans into his shoulder to shut him up.

 

“Teenage nightcrawlers? Don’t you have anything better to do on a Friday night?”

 

“Oh, you know, date night.” The officer snorts at that, and Jughead smirks but feels Betty’s sneaker digging into his ankle.

 

“Both of you stay right where you are while I process some things,” he orders, retreating to his cruiser. He folds into the driver’s seat and negotiates his laptop towards his side.

 

Betty’s eyes are trained on the officer, unblinking like a bird of prey. Jughead’s gaze follows hers. The officer didn’t have a body camera, and he cannot tell if there is a dash cam on his cruiser. He feels Betty’s shoulders shrugging into his, and when he looks over, her arms are working behind her back. He hears little metallic clicks and then the release of the cuffs clinking to the concrete. “Hands, Jug,” she demands in a whisper. He angles his back towards her, feels her slipping the pick into the simple handcuff lock.

 

His arms ache as they fall back into proper position, but Betty doesn’t let him readjust, motioning to the line of cars parked along the curb, pointing in the direction of the block where they parked the station wagon. He glances back at the officer who talks into the receiver clipped to his vest, distracted by the computer screen. Betty grabs Jug’s hand and guides him along the parked sedans, both of them hunched under the view of the windows.

 

When they round the block, homestretch, the station wagon in view, Jughead laughs and yanks her back with a twirl, feeling so unbelievably stupid and young and lucky. She shushes him, but there are small giggles between each lowly spoken _quiet, Juggie,_ his giddiness contagious. There is still a cop cruiser around the corner and maybe footage of them on a dash cam, but if they are together, they can get out from between any rock and hard place, he thinks.

 

He lets her go as they come up on the hood of the station wagon, splitting apart to their respective doors. He spills into the passenger seat, feeling twitchy, edged out, heady adrenaline making her look so damn beautiful as she turns the engine over. She keeps the lights off and reverses back to the intersection.

 

The station wagon rolls to a gentle stop in front of the Cooper house. Jughead sees Archie’s bedroom light is still on even though the dash clock reads well past eleven o’clock at night.

 

“So how much trouble are you going to be in for breaking curfew?” He asks, turning towards her, finding she is much closer than he thought, leaning across the center console as she releases her belt buckle. Her lips muffle the last syllable, and Jughead feels all the blood drain from his brain at the same time every nerve ending in his head short circuits with a shower of sparks. It is brief, feeling almost like a mistake, but he licks his lips and tastes peach gloss. He opens his eyes to see her staring at him, analyzing his reaction, investigation green. He tips his head forward to catch her lips again, hears a little noise hitch in the back of her throat, something like pleased surprise. Her hand tangles up in his t-shirt, pulling him across the center console, and his hand moves over the shifter to cover hers.

 

“What are you thinking?” he murmurs after, fingers tripping over hers on the gear shift, his heart thudding painfully in his chest.

 

She smiles softly, her hand trembling against his shirt collar. “I was thinking the timing was never going to be right.”

 

* * *

 

**November 2016**

**Betty**

**Strange Time by Matt Maltese**

Betty hands Veronica a grande skim latte, a perfectly timed temperature from when she picked it up right before school. “Thank you, my dear.” Veronica takes a sip while making room for Betty on the student lounge loveseat, smoothing her plum Burberry plaid skirt over her thighs as she resettles.

 

“Have you talked to Archie?”

 

Betty watches Veronica’s black fingernails pick at the cardboard sleeve. “No, not lately,” the brunette admits. “How is Fred?”

 

“He’s walking around, probably too much, but he’s stubborn like his son.”

 

“You mean that the other way around,” Veronica counters with some hostile subtext. Betty tests out her own latte to give her mouth something to do, and Veronica sighs, “Okay, okay, I know that sounded a little catty. I’m just – _ugh_. He is so hung up about Ms. Grundy, and yes, I get it, there was some Mary Kay Letourneau affair between them around the time I got here, but there are lingering feelings, I can tell, and it’s something I can’t ask him. It never really ended between them, Archie and Grundy. I mean, we got over our parents dating, but now, it feels like I am competing with a dead woman, and you can’t compete with a dead woman.”

 

Betty wants to assure Veronica that Archie’s alarming behavior has more to do with his father than their former music teacher, but that isn’t quite the whole truth. He walks around looking cursed, guilty, mad as hell. He feels responsible for what happened to his father, to Geraldine Grundy. Predictably, he pushes Veronica away, so Betty can understand Veronica’s self-conscious misgivings. It is unchartered territory for Veronica.

 

“Am I just like my mother, bailing at the first sign of trouble when things get rough? First my dad and now Fred,” Veronica worries. “Is it all over before it even began?” Veronica gives her a look, curious about Betty’s pensive silence. “We’ve never really talked about this, have we? Is it weird?”

 

Betty recognizes a shift in the conversation and perks. “Is what weird?”

 

“I mean, I was wondering if this thing between Archie and me, if that’s weird for you?”

 

“No.” On instinct, it is the first word out of her mouth. Veronica looks skeptical, and she should be, but ‘no’ is the simplest answer Betty can offer, the most honest. Wouldn’t a lengthy explanation just invite more suspicion? “I mean it, V. It’s not weird. I don’t feel that way about Archie anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.” Betty thinks Veronica might want to press further, but she seems to take this answer at face value.

 

“Enough about this fruitless melodrama,” Veronica snaps, waving the irritating thoughts away. “So, you and our resident Holden Caulfield? How’s that going?” Betty thinks she might get mental whiplash from how quickly the subject changes. Veronica is a good conversational fisherman, but Betty is learning the moves. First, she throws bait about Archie, something shiny and eye-catching but expected, then she casts something living, squirming, something Betty will struggle to wrap her head around.

 

Betty shakes her head like she doesn’t know what Veronica is talking about. “What do you mean?”

 

“Don’t play dumb, B. Sparks are flying, clouds of pheromones,” Veronica practically hollers, and Betty glances fretfully around the student lounge, but only a few students are loitering around the vending machines. “It’s like everyone’s afraid to breathe around you two lest they get swept up in it.”

 

She hasn’t seen Jughead since they broke into Grundy’s house Friday night. He texted her later that night saying he and Archie were going to hole up in their room for the rest of the weekend, that Archie needed some time away from everyone to get lost in RPGs for a couple days. There was a flicker of disappointment, hoping to see him before school on Monday, but she understood. _I expect you in the Blue and Gold at 0730 sharp on Monday, Jones_.

 

A sheepish _yes, boss_ pinged not a moment later with a winking smiley emoji.

 

She resists touching her lips where his smudged her gloss, the feeling like a brand on her mouth that followed her through the red front door, up the carpeted stairs to tumble onto her bed. The air rushed up around her, the feeling of falling persisting even as her body settled into the mattress. “I think that’s a bit of an overstatement, V.”

 

“It’s one of my many talents,” Veronica smirks with a sly twist of her head, every action an exaggeration, every movement a play.

 

“You make it sound like we have the flu or something.” Maybe she does. She feels sick with something, a million somethings fluttering in her stomach.

 

She wonders if Veronica can hear her heartbeat from this close, because she was terrified the moment right before, watching him turn towards her with some attentive line about curfew, realizing the idealized moment she was waiting for would never come and she couldn’t wait anymore. The timing was never going to be right, so she stole it, and though it was brief and light, it felt like a double-decker collision in her chest. When he dipped forward for another, she nearly flinched, readying herself for the impact. She was dizzy with leftover adrenaline from evading the cop that surged again when his lips touched hers, and it felt like the moment before the rollercoaster tips over the first hill. A hundred metaphors sprinting through her brain, but he has a knack for coaxing them out of her. All of his obnoxious filler in those _Blue and Gold_ articles, editing them out and storing those wordy embellishments away inside of her for just that occasion and helping her feel brave enough to think them then, to meet him and stop the guesswork and not give a damn about timing. And suddenly it was the easiest thing in the world.

 

Veronica laughs. “Oh, whatever you two have, it’s definitely contagious.”

 

“Changing the subject, I asked you here this morning because I need your help with something,” Betty informs her, finishing off the latte. She had more than one reason for calling Veronica to the student lounge this early. Pop’s is going under, and Mr. Tate is barely treading water with the scandalous moniker of ‘Death Diner.’

 

“Anything, my dear,” Veronica promises, shifting the black curtain of her hair over her shoulder with a flourish.

 

Betty stares at her empty cup, fidgeting with the plastic flip-top on the lid. “I need the River Vixens for Pop’s Retro Night.” She peels the flip-top off like a Band-Aid.

 

“You know I’m still in a custody battle with Cheryl, right?”

 

“And I was thinking this could be leverage,” Betty reasons. “We agree to give Cheryl the Vixens back if she agrees to help out with Retro Night. I know it is a big favor.” Especially now with the precarious nature of Veronica’s budding relationship with Archie, dealing with her mother’s breakup, and the fear of some new serial killer overarching everything.

 

“Why is Pop’s so important to you?”

 

Despite its new nickname, Pop’s has always been the place she felt safest, secure in herself, the nostalgia comforting. “I grew up with Pop’s. I can’t imagine Riverdale without it.” And with how violently her hometown has changed in the past few months, dead teenagers, shootings, suicidal drug lords, like living her own personal _Blue Velvet_. “I don’t want to imagine Riverdale without it.”

 

“Yeah,” Veronica muses, leaning towards Betty. “That was where you and I met for the first time. Where I met Archie, too. And where else can you get a milkshake like that within a hundred miles?”

 

“Nowhere, V,” Betty answers dead serious. “Literally nowhere. I’ve tried.”

 

Veronica pokes Betty in one solemn cheek, watches the gravity dissolve from Betty’s face. “Okay, B, I’ll tame the ginger dragoness.”

 

Betty smiles wide, pours a thousand thank yous, which Veronica bats away.

 

“Let me know if you need backup with Cheryl later,” Betty offers. “I have a meeting with Jug in the _Blue and Gold_ in five minutes.” She ignores the suspicious arch of Veronica’s manicured brow, taking both their empty paper cups to deposit them in the trash before she leaves. Just before she goes, she reaches for Veronica’s hand, gives it one gentle reassuring squeeze. “Talk to Archie, V.” Veronica looks like it is the last thing she wants to do. “And be persistent. Veronica Lodge doesn’t give up so easily on someone she wants, someone she cares about.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jug balances on the edge of the desk, arms folded, legs crossed as he contemplates their newest murder board. There are two fresh coffees on the desktop next to his hip. When he notices her at the door to the _Blue and Gold_ office, he gestures at the one that must be hers.

 

“I had coffee with Veronica already,” she admits, so he slowly pushes it towards the trash can. She makes a quick grab for the cup. “But, I’ll drink it!”

 

She picks up her coffee and takes a sip, light half-and-half with one sugar, sets it back down next to his with a private smile. When she looks back at him to ask how he knows how she takes her coffee, he’s staring at the faint pink lipstick smudge on the lip of her cup. Her hand enters his line of sight, fingers curling around his coffee cup. “So what’s going on in here?” She wonders, then pulls it towards her. “Dash of cream?” She guesses, popping the top off and staring into the enigma inside his coffee cup.

 

“As bitter and black as my soul,” he answers with a little mirth, arms folded, watching her mull the pitch-dark like looking into a magic eight ball.

 

“There’s gotta be sugar in there,” she figures, taking a sip. “Okay, lesson learned.” Replaces the top and nudges it back towards him. “Thanks for the coffee, though, Jug,” she says, reaching for her more palatable blend.

 

He shrugs, finally unfolds his arms. “How’s Veronica?” His hands grip the edge of the desktop, nails picking at the veneer. He hasn’t looked Betty in the eye yet. “What were you two talking about?”

 

 _Archie. Things. You._ Is that what he thinks about now? Did Betty kiss and tell? “Pop’s,” she answers simply, taking a step towards him.

 

His eyes meet hers, but his head remains tucked down, the sound of his nails scraping at the desktop between them. She catches the nervous tick in his jaw. He is clenching. “You mean ‘death diner’,” he sneers.

 

“Help me save Pop’s,” she implores, clasping the lapels of his sherpa and drawing him towards her. It is an easy slide in her direction, his nails abandoning the desktop’s chipped veneer to slip his hands over her hipbones, a numbed tingly feeling edging under her skin where his hands move. She wonders what it would feel like to have his bare palms against her bare skin, no sweater, no wool skirt in the way. “It’s your place, too, Juggie.”

 

“Don’t work too hard to convince me, Cooper,” he says with so many implications, his eyes fixed on her pout. His stare draws her up on her tiptoes to press her mouth to his, and she gets the feeling of being struck, bowled over.

 

“You can wear one of those soda jerk uniforms with that cute bowtie,” she suggests, tracing the space above his collarbone where the tie would rest.

 

He snorts, staring above her head as if seeing himself in that grease-stain-doomed white on white. “You mean ridiculous uniform with the absurd Peewee Herman bowtie. I could be like Paul Sparks.” Their classmate, the spirited thespian Paul Sparks has worked at Pop’s since he could qualify for a work permit. Sparks lays into the role of old-fashioned soda jerk with dated terms like ‘keen’ and ‘neat-o’ and a snap of his spirit fingers, a living period piece. Pop Tate loves Paul’s commitment to the role, but Betty knew Jug always found him a bit much and purposefully avoided the diner when Sparks had a shift.

 

“Replace ridiculous with nostalgic and absurd with charming,” Betty corrects, earning a smirk.

 

He presses his lips to hers, mumbles in between kisses that he worries she could always get him to act the fool. She drops her face with a shy smile, presses the lapels of his jacket, smooths them flat while he pecks her cheek affectionately, a small beg for her to look up, let him kiss her again. “Are we going to talk about this?”

 

“Do we have to?” It is a genuine question without an ounce of jest behind it.

 

“No,” she concedes, studying the calm on his face and feeling it reflected on her own. “No, I guess we don’t.” The first bell rings, and she feels like a well-trained dog when her head turns towards the sound. She grabs her bag and makes for the door, feeling him following close behind. There are lingering hotspots on her body where his hands touched her, and she doesn’t make it through the door before he has her again, making sure those hotspots stick.

 

“One tardy won’t kill you,” he argues, stealing back her attention by pressing her against the door to the _Blue and Gold_ office, her head knocking against the frosted glass when he slides his mouth over hers again. She feels his thumbs stroking her jawline, a quiet petition for her to open her mouth, permission to slip his tongue over hers. The taste of coffee on both their tongues, bitter black on his but sweeter in her mouth. She wonders if she drank too much caffeine, her pulse racing, and he must feel it sprinting under his thumbs.

 

“Pop quiz,” she mumbles between kisses, her fingers twining the hair curling out from underneath his beanie, thicker and softer than she remembers because it has been so long since she felt allowed to touch it. “Mr. Phylum. Pop quiz, Juggie.”

 

He breaks the onslaught of kisses to lean his forehead against hers. His hands rest on her hips again. He is touching her in places other boys have, Archie particularly, but it feels different, worlds away from the platonic natural affection of her oldest friend. It feels like he has been wanting to touch her like this for a while, that he was only waiting patiently for her approval. She wants to ask when and why, but then he suggests she come over after school.

 

The implication is clear, but she isn’t sure Archie’s is the place to continue whatever it is they’re doing here in the _Blue and Gold_ office, not with Fred still recovering and Archie’s haunted pacing or Mary Andrews fretting about in the kitchen or stewing in the den. “To Archie’s?”

 

He realizes he needs to clarify. “No, no, the trailer, my dad’s trailer.”

 

“You still have the trailer?”

 

“Until the end of the year,” he reveals. “I have to have everything packed up by then. At least, everything important, which isn’t much.”

 

“You want me to help?” Is that where the request is coming from?

 

“I mean, you can,” he says trailing. “But, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.” The tardy bell rings and he laughs lightly like it is his own little victory. She grouches. It will be her first tardy this semester. He looks sidelong at their murder board. “I was thinking impromptu research session on this new big bad, unless you have other ideas.”

 

“The Retro night is tonight, Jug,” she informs him, mulling over her other ideas while staring at his hands.

 

“Yeah,” he says like he knows. Of course, he knows, because she has been pinning flyers all over town for the last few days. “But that’s not until later. We can head over after.” After. After he finds something useful to do with his hands. “Meet me by the field. We’ll take the shortcut.”

 

“Okay.” She watches his thumb smoothing over her hipbone absentmindedly. “Yeah.” She has her retro outfit in her locker. It is essentially one of her practice cheerleading uniforms. Pick up a few bits of research material from here in the _Blue and Gold_ office. Check in with Veronica that the Vixens are a go.

 

Jug watches her thoughts aligning, plans forming. He kisses her to feel them scramble. “Let’s get to class, Cooper. Pop quiz, remember?”

 

* * *

 

“So this is what you meant by ‘take the shortcut’?” She gives the motorcycle a dubious look, provides an equally as suspicious eye to the helmet in his outstretched hand. “Where’d this come from?”

 

“It’s my dad’s.” He drops his hand, balances the helmet on the handlebars, waiting patiently while she deliberates.

 

“You have a license for this?”

 

“Sure.” Not exactly convincing.

 

“Isn’t it a little cold to be riding around on a motorcycle?”

 

He smirks, fiddling with the chinstrap of the helmet. “I’m warm. Just sit close.”

 

“You’re just full of surprises, Jones.” A callback that makes him smile.

 

He offers her the helmet again. “Yeah, I have layers.”

 

When she steps forward to take the helmet, she spies the small snake decal on the gas tank, a double-headed serpent hissing.

 

“What is it?”

 

Sensing the inklings of unease, but she chalks it up to the motorcycle. She tugs the helmet over her head. “Nothing.”

 

* * *

 

 

They make it through a dozen newspapers from the Riverdale Register and the Greendale Gazette, saving the clippings detailing Grundy’s murder and Fred’s shooting, highlighting possible connecting details between the two incidents, until Betty stops chewing on the end of her purple pen and steals the Register news section from four days ago out of his hands. He was in the middle of underlining a quote from one of Grundy’s new music students, and his red pen skips over the back of Betty’s hand as she snatches the paper from him.

 

His pen remains poised in the air where the paper used to be, sighing when she tosses the entire section over the arm of the sofa. He calmly caps the pen and places it down on the coffee table in front of him. He leans his shoulder into the seat of the sofa, his elbow prodding her thigh. “Was that code for a study break?”

 

She licks at the red streaks on the back of her hand, rubbing out the ink, ignoring him and playing dumb.

 

“It’s more polite to ask, Betty.” He puts an Alice Cooper inflection on the admonishment, tongue-in-cheek, but then places his hand flat on her thigh like a test. “So just ask.”

 

They seem to have abandoned the slow turn of the dial on their relationship, she thinks, leaping past holding hands and nudging with inside jokes. He puts his hands on her so readily, and she cannot help responding to the loaded subtext in each touch. It is subconscious when her thighs part just a hair, moving just the barest centimeter, but his hand senses the movement, and she sees the corner of his mouth twitch up.

 

He bumps the coffee table on the way up, juice glasses wobbling and stacks of newspapers shifting as he crawls up onto the sofa. It is kind of awkward finding space for him, and they end up on their sides with her wedged a little tight against the seatback. Her skirt stretches tight as she hooks her leg over his hip, and he slots his thigh between her legs in response. The bold action makes her skirt bunch up, self-conscious apprehension stirring in her chest with the solid feeling of his thigh pressing up between her legs.

 

“Is this okay?” He asks when she gasps softly as they settle against each other. Her heart feels like it might beat out of her chest, but she nods. “This is what you meant by study break, right?” She hears the nervousness in his own voice and giggles, the sound producing a flush up his neck. Even if he sounds anxious, his hands guide her closer, making her inhale shakily when his thigh rests at the junction between her legs, putting pressure on a spot where no one besides herself has gone. She wonders if he can feel the heat through her tights, through his jeans, feels heat spreading across her cheeks with the thought.

 

She can still feel the vestigial vibrations of the motorcycle engine between her legs, and the flipping sensation in her stomach reminds her of when Jughead pulled back on the accelerator and they shot off through the football field parking lot. She wonders if these sensations will ever go away, but the moment they start to fade, he touches her and it all comes crashing back.

 

At some point, she practically ends up on top of him, hand tugging insistently at his shirt, one pushing his beanie off his head to run her fingers through his hair. “Is this too fast?” She wonders aloud, but he shakes his head vigorously no, no certainly not, his palms under her shirt stroking her lower back, venturing up towards her shoulders, subtle grazes against her bra clasp.

 

She rocks her hips, his thigh still slotted between, hers clenching on either side with each slide. She can feel the tension building low in her belly, feels what her rocking does to him, feels it until her phone dings with a text. A short pause when she tips her face towards the phone on the coffee table, but he draws her attention back with his tongue behind her ear. A few more moments of bliss until her phone dings again, and again, and again, a flurry of messages lighting up the screen. “Who?” She wonders, awkwardly scrambling across his body as she reaches for the phone, hears Jughead mumble the sound of PacMan dying.

 

Mostly Veronica but a few from her mother and Kevin. When she sees the time, she curses, untangling her legs from Jughead’s and making to stuff all their research back into her backpack. “We’re gonna be late.” She tries to multitask yanking the zippers of her backpack closed while she shimmies her skirt back into place. “No, I should change first. We’ll have to go straight to the diner. Or no, it might be too cold for shorts. Ugh, why did I let you take me here on the motorcycle.”

 

“Late, late, for a very important date,” Jughead singsongs, and she throws him an eye roll. “That’s who you remind me of sometimes.” He hasn’t moved off the couch yet, still sprawled across the cushions, his beanie on the floor behind him, shirt wrinkled and bunched up a little that her gaze catches on that bare patch of skin, the dusting of hair from his navel to the button of his jeans.

 

“Who does that make you? The March Hare?” She has to pull out all of the research to reach her uniform for Retro Night, grumbling and tearing her eyes off him before her gaze falls below the belt.

 

“The Dormouse?”

 

She rolls her eyes again, finding her uniform at the bottom of her backpack. “You never sleep, Jug.”  

 

“So, where’s my uniform?” It comes out like a challenge.

 

She thought one step ahead. “I already called Pop. He has a uniform ready for you.” She narrows her eyes at his grimace. “Don’t give me that look. You promised.”

 

She leaves him in the living room to stew while she changes in the bathroom. When she comes back out, he has everything all packed up, her winter jacket in his hands while he waits by the door. He gives her legs a once-over. “Shorts in November?”

 

She lets him help her into her jacket, arguing that it was all about the look, the aesthetic, something he should appreciate. He does, he assures her. She tells him some of the girls will be roller skating. He admits he likes the knee-high socks, bends down to tie his shoes and uses it as an excuse to stroke just above where one gold-striped sock ends, his fingers dipping into the notch of her knee. She feels her teeth sink into her lower lip of their own accord, hands drawing her winter jacket tighter around her as he unfolds back to standing, snatching the cycle keys off the hook on the way up.

 

He leaves the trailer door unlocked. She glances back up the steps. “Aren’t you worried about someone breaking in?”

 

He straddles his bike, kicking up the stand. “Betty, no one steals from the poor.” She manipulates the helmet in her hands, staring down at the worn padding, the faint sweat lines along the brow when he jokes, “What would they steal, my dad’s collection of bottle openers? Come on, we’re gonna be late.”

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s perfect,” she declares, permitting the word where it is deserved, gazing out at the neon glow keeping the darkness at bay, the booths filled with the doorbell still ringing, the cars lined out in the parking lot. The gentle lull of Josie and the Pussycats comes in over the loudspeakers and people are dancing between the parked cars. A teenage waitress zooms past her on skates with a tray of milkshakes balanced on her shoulder, skids to a careful stop at the booth by the door.

 

“I think you officially saved Pop’s, Betty.” Jughead leans across the service counter, grease stains on his apron and brow a little damp from standing by the heat lamps near the kitchen. She reaches over and straightens his bowtie, prompting a smile that draws her across the counter to kiss it, snatching an extra peck at his dimple to feel that smile line against her lips.

 

“Yes, Betty, congratulations.” She had tried to forget her mother used this as an opportunity to busybody Betty’s charity event. Alice crooks her finger at her daughter. “Walk me to my car, sweetheart. I need to give you something.” Betty doesn’t miss the critical glare her mother throws at Jughead.

 

Outside the diner, weaving in and out of the crowd just starting to disperse as the concert comes to a close, her mother loops her arm with Betty’s to tug her closer. “What is it you wanted to give me?”

 

“Some advice, Betty, that’s all,” her mother explains, bringing them to a stop next to the station wagon. Alice glances back at the diner, drawing Betty’s gaze to the windows. She doesn’t know what her mother is looking at until she spots a group of men in leather jackets making their way to the service counter, approaching Jughead. She thinks they are just going to pay their bill, but they linger at the cash register after Jughead hands the tallest man his change. It is a five-minute exchange, much longer than it should take to pay for a meal.

 

“That’s not the first time they’ve spoken tonight,” her mother informs her. “While you were off saving Pop’s, I watched that tall man cavorting with your Southside Pony Boy on at least three occasions this evening. What possible things could Jughead Jones, son of the Serpent murderer FP Jones, have to chat about with a bunch of shady gang members, Betty?” Betty watches Jughead lean across the service counter until she can’t see his face anymore behind the group of men. “And that isn’t even the most interesting part of this nostalgic evening, dear. Did you know that several drug deals went down tonight, one by that lovely leather-jacketed gentleman on the right with a boy from the football team? So, yes, congratulations, Betty, for effectively giving crime a haven in Riverdale. I’ll see you at home before midnight, sweetheart. Don’t be late.”

 

Her mother gets into the station wagon, but before she rolls out of Pop’s parking lot, she lowers the window to hand Betty a taser. “Given the circumstances, I need you safe.” Betty nearly tells her mother you don’t bring a taser to a gunfight, but she bites her tongue on the quip.

 

The taser feels like dead weight in her hand when Betty turns back toward the diner, the three men in leather jackets stalking out of the chrome-lined double doors towards the motorcycles lined up on the edge of the lot. She hears the quick succession of cruiser engines revving and thinks about Jughead’s Honda hiding behind the diner so her mother wouldn’t know how Betty got to Pop’s. Through the diner windows, she sees Jughead still standing by the cash register staring at the men on motorcycles, watching them peel out of the parking lot spraying pea gravel.

 

* * *

 

 

 _He did it for me_ , she thinks, watching her friends study their personal copies of the cipher.

 

It is official now. Riverdale has a serial killer, the Black Hood. He formally announced it for the whole town in a letter to the editor with a few added trophies for authenticity, Fred Andrew’s long lost wallet with blood spatters in the leather, a safe touch, and Geraldine Grundy’s lolita sunglasses with one strand of her hair caught in the red plastic arms. Archie was right. There is no such thing as coincidence. The Black Hood is real.

 

And Betty _inspires_ him.

 

Polly left after the letter to the Register about targeting sinners. Her father still sleeps somewhere else, and her mother spirals in the middle of it all, spirals while Betty implodes.

 

She keeps the letter to herself and on her person at all times because God forbid it falls into the wrong (redheaded) hands.

 

With crocodile tears and runny mascara, she hands over the cipher to Sheriff Keller, shaking her head no when he asks if there was anything else. Like Betty predicts and with zero evidence that the cipher is from the real Hood, her mother prints the code in the following day’s Register. Betty tries to keep the eagerness (anxiety) out of her voice when she goes straight to Jughead with the cipher, suggesting a code-breaking party with the rest of the Scoobies. _You can host!_ She feels like a liar with the private letter burning a hole in her notebook, but she still hasn’t gathered up the courage to ask Jug about Retro Night and those Serpents. He hasn’t mentioned it either.

 

A tension headache is forming at the base of her skull as she stares at the indecipherable symbols. Jughead offers her some chips, but she pushes the bag away with a grumble, reaching back and tugging her hair free from the confines of the elastic band. A moment later she feels his fingers running through her hair, massaging the spots that throb from her headache. When she looks back at him sprawled on the couch, he is watching her hair sliding through his fingers, catches her watching him and smiles like he is the one who’s been caught.

 

The question has been on the tip of her tongue since Retro Night. Who were those men in the leather jackets? _Who are they to you, Jug?_ The questions are like smoke in her mind, obscuring her thoughts, but then he smiles at her and all her suspicions dissolve because whatever it is cannot possibly be as bad as the letter hidden in her journalism notes. What crooked things could be hidden behind that reverent smile, the one he saves just for her?

 

Kevin flops back across the carpet with a frustrated groan. “Ah, my brain hurts!”

 

“Maybe we need a break?” Veronica suggests, pushing away her own copy of the code. She checks her phone for the time. “Or dinner. Can we put a pin in this until tomorrow?” Kevin agrees wholeheartedly, snapping his books closed and starting to pack up.

 

“I swear I’ve seen these symbols before,” Betty insists, hunched over the cipher and a paperback on code-breaking, hardly aware the rest of the Scoobies are flagging. She reaches for another book across the coffee table.

 

“Betts,” Jug beckons with a slight tug on her shoulder.

 

Betty’s head pops up to see Kevin with his backpack already slung over his shoulders and Veronica gathering her pens into her purse and rearranging her notebooks to leave as well. She looks over at Archie slouched in FP’s Barcalounger, flipping through a hardback about masked serial killers with all the enthusiasm of kid eating raw broccoli. Archie is not a researcher. He doesn’t wait. He acts. He needs something to do or else he wilts. He still hasn’t shaved.

 

“Archie,” Betty calls, and the redhead glances up at her over the top of the book. “Why don’t you take Veronica and Kevin home?” Because she knows Kevin and Veronica live on opposite sides of town, and the Keller house is closer to Sunnyside. This will force Archie and Veronica to be alone in Fred’s Bronco, the perfect formula to produce the conversation they have both been avoiding for the past two weeks.

 

Veronica hitches her purse on her forearm and stands up with Kevin. She gives Betty a debating look, but Betty jerks her head toward the sulking redhead in the corner. Veronica sighs and turns resolutely towards her something more. “Come on, Archie-kins,” she bids affectionately. “I’m suddenly craving a hot chocolate from Pop’s.”

 

Kevin reads the room and asks if Archie can drop him at his house before he takes Veronica to Pop’s. He has a math test early tomorrow morning. Betty has that same test, so she can back him up if Archie questions Kevin’s motives.

 

Archie has yet to make a decision either way and gestures between Betty and Jughead. “What about you two? Are you coming home tonight, Jug?”  

 

Jughead falls back on their go-to lie, an oldie but goldie now. “We have some _Blue and Gold_ stuff to go over. I’ll get Betty home.” Betty notes that Jug doesn’t confirm or deny whether he will spend the night at the Andrews.  

 

After the screen door closes behind the three retreating Scoobies, Betty turns to Jughead. “You haven’t told him yet.”

 

“Told him what?”

 

“About you and I.”

 

Jughead pulls his notebook up to obscure his face. “It’s kind of hard to bring up given the circumstances.” Betty tugs on his notebook, and he drops it on his chest. “I mean, Fred is still recovering.” He gestures at the door where their friends just left. “And he and Veronica are weird. Not to mention there is a serial killer on the loose, and he is convinced the guy will be coming back to finish what he started. It’s a weird conversation to start. ‘Hey Archie, your best friends are sucking face now. Hope that’s kosher.’”

 

“Are you worried about how he will react?” She has to tease these parts out of Jughead, always. He chews the inside of his cheek. “We could tell him together. It might be better that way. Better than lying to him.”

 

“We’re not lying,” Jughead readily defends. “If anything, it’s by omission.”

 

“Right. We’re withholding the truth.”

 

“Yeah, not a lie. Think of it like this. It’s in a time-sealed vault. We can’t open it until the time is up. Once Archie resolves his issues with Veronica and Fred is going again, we’ll open the vault,” he explains, sounding so convinced with himself.

 

She wants to ask him what else is in this mysterious truth vault, and what series of events would have to pass for him to tell her about those Serpents on Retro Night. Then, she thinks about the letter in her notebook and turns back to the cipher. “After we crack this code,” she concludes.

 

“Yeah, that too. Shouldn’t be more than another couple hours,” he pledges, lifting up his notebook to take another look.

 

* * *

 

 

Her phone buzzes itself off the side table, clunking to the carpet, and Betty’s head shoots up. She accidentally puts her weight on Jughead’s stomach when she tries to sit up alert, and he groans and shifts awkwardly. Still dozing, his hands grab her wrists to offset the weight, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

 

“Oh my god, what time is it?” She scrambles off the couch, her fingers tripping over her phone as she blinks against the sunlight coming in through the threadbare curtains. “We fell asleep. How did we fall asleep?” Jughead grumbles about a crick in his neck. She set an alarm for when she had to leave, but she cannot remember if it went off.

 

“Exhaustion. It’s not easy being us,” Jughead mumbles sleepily, throwing his hand over his face to combat the light.

 

“She’s gonna kill me.” There are ten text messages and five missed phone calls with accompanying voicemails on her phone screen. “If she hasn’t already called the cops to do it for her.” Her math test starts in thirty minutes, but she isn’t sure she will make it that far before her mother, probably stalking the streets of Riverdale right now, lassos Betty into the station wagon and hogties her in her bedroom for the remainder of Betty’s young life.

 

Jughead starts to reach for her, hoping to calm her down, but just as his fingers brush her shoulder, she slips out from the touch. She gives him a hasty goodbye and a noncommittal promise to call him as she grabs what she can before tumbling out of the trailer.

 

It snowed the night before, and she ends up wading through two feet of it to the main road, arrives for her math test freezing and with soaked jeans, a bare two minutes under the wire. Kevin, noting the same clothes from the day before and blonde bedhead, gives her a questioning look as she takes her seat. She waves him off as class starts, reaching into her backpack for a calculator when she notices her black journalism notebook isn’t there, the one with the letter from the Black Hood.

 

* * *

 

 

She texts Jughead to ask if she forgot anything at his trailer. He messages back quickly enough. _Yeah, a couple journals. I can come by later?_ He doesn’t sound angry. He sounds neutral, a good sign. Then, he hasn’t found it. Yet. She replies with a chipper _yes, thank you, Juggie! xxx._ His response is short but sweet, _np x._

 

She considers asking for the notebooks sooner, but cheer practice starts in five minutes, and she has no idea where he is right now. Veronica flips her ponytail as she passes and tells Betty to get her cute little butt in gear before the red queen calls for their heads. Two hours. Two whole hours for him to find that letter, either by accident or by being himself. Veronica peeks her head around the row of lockers and beckons Betty a little more forcefully. “Do you want to be back row again?”

 

“Yes, coming!” She calls back, tossing her phone on top of her folded school clothes and slamming her locker closed.

 

Betty spends all of practice missing her cues and bombing Cheryl’s carefully crafted choreography. At one point, she drops the ball on a routine cupie, nearly putting a poor Vixen in crutches, and Cheryl harasses her mercilessly until she retreats into the background on her own, no questions asked. She twirls and struts a half measure behind for the remainder of the routine.

 

After practice, she evades Veronica’s inevitable line of questioning by stuffing her clothes into her backpack and hightailing it out of the locker room in her practice uniform. Everything needs to be cleaned anyway.

 

Her mother isn’t home yet, to Betty’s relief, because she isn’t ready for the prepared and probably soul-crushing interrogation about her activities from last night.

 

Betty starts a load of darks in the washing machine, tossing in her clothes from the night before, sheds her practice uniform in the washroom to pack it in with the rest of the dirty laundry. As the water starts to fill the bin, soapy and rising, she massages the goosebumps on her bare arms, feels the tacky stick of dried sweat, feels filthy.

 

She checks her phone before she takes a shower, a few messages, a single question mark from Veronica followed up with an emoji for a milkshake, Kevin wondering about this morning’s walk of shame, her mother with a sinister reminder to _come home immediately after school_ or else, and that _dinner is at six, sweetheart_. Nothing from Jughead yet.

 

Her shower lasts twenty minutes, half of which is spent with her forehead pressed to the tile as she turns the dial closer and closer to the tiny red sun.

 

Thanksgiving is next Thursday, but she isn’t sure her family will have one this year. Or the Andrews. Maybe not the Lodges. Will anyone celebrate this year? She thinks maybe she should hold one anyway and invite everyone who doesn’t have a place to go, a Friendsgiving.  She imagines all of her friends around the dining table, just her friends. Jughead and Archie arguing about how to carve the turkey until Kevin tells them both they are making a hatchet job of the bird and takes control. Veronica would ‘help’ Betty in the kitchen but spend most of the time drinking all the white wine she brought, ending up toasted by dinnertime and making fun of Jughead wearing his beanie at the table, disgracing the Cooper’s good china settings. And maybe Betty wouldn’t even notice her family wasn’t there. Maybe it is the best idea she has had in a while.

 

She inches the dial back towards the blue snowflakes.

 

Betty comes out from the steam in her fluffy robe and the first thing she sees is Jughead’s face hovering behind her bedroom window. She jumps, her heart leaping up into her throat, but when she realizes it’s Jug, she unlocks the window to let him in, moves out of the way as he folds himself through and crawls across her bench seat.

 

He gives her a once over in her robe, and she remembers there is nothing underneath. He seems to recognize this, too, when he averts his eyes to anywhere but her. She cinches the belt a little tighter around her waist. “Sorry, I just got home from cheerleading practice.”

 

“Yeah, I realized we didn’t really specify a time, but I figured you’d be home by now.” He unhooks his messenger bag from his shoulder and places it on her desk. “Look, I wasn’t snooping, believe it or not, but it just fell out.”

 

She tightens the robe belt further as he rummages in his bag for her notebooks. Should she play dumb? “What did?”

 

He has her notebooks in one hand. The letter in the other, crumpled, folded and refolded from how many times she has read it, memorized now.

 

“Why haven’t you told anybody? Why haven’t you given it to Sheriff Keller?”

 

She doesn’t know what to say. Her fingers are itching to snatch the letter out of his hand. She regrets not burning it now. She feels unbelievably stupid in her big fluffy blue robe with her damp hair limp around her face.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asks, sounding affronted, placing the notebooks on her desk with the letter on top, unfolded.

 

“Did you read it?”

 

“Yeah,” he admits. Now both their fingerprints are all over the letter. “Betty, keeping something like this to yourself. It’s dangerous. The Black Hood is dangerous.”

 

“And I made him dangerous!” The words flood out of her mouth before she can stop them. The outburst is too loud for her small bedroom, and the next thing she says come out in a guilty whisper. “I inspired him.”

 

“You think people are going to blame you for this?”

 

“Not people,” she states firmly but breaks on the next part. “Just one person.”

 

“Archie?” Jughead approaches her, and she wants to run, but he gets his hands wrapped around her upper arms, holds her in place. “For what? For writing a speech that this lunatic has twisted around in order to mess with you and mess with this town? Betty, Archie knows who the bad guys are, and you are not one of the bad guys.” Her hands fall to her sides when he rubs at the soft baby blue down of her robe. “You’re Betty Cooper, like Nancy Drew meets Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

 

And all of a sudden it clicks inside her head. She starts to think Jughead’s mind is a magic master key for the tangled ever-changing lock inside her own messed up head. He notices her eyes light up, but before he can question it, she presses her mouth to his in a grateful kiss.

 

“I’m glad you took that for the compliment it was,” he comments afterward, his lips looking bee-stung and surprised.

 

“I think I figured it out, the cipher,” she explains giddy, her hands shaking with excitement as she tugs at his jacket lapels. “I think the Black Hood might be using one of my touchstones, Jug, and if I’m right, then I know what we need to decode this.” She says all of this so quickly as if all her thoughts were backed up inside her and someone just pulled the drain plug. Jug tries to play catch up with her train of thought, but it’s her turn to scramble his head again with another thankful kiss.

 

“Betty!” Her mother downstairs.

 

She swears and he kisses her again.

 

“Meet me at the library at six, okay?”

 

He nods, moves to kiss her again when her mother yells her name a second time.

 

He crawls through the open window, accidentally knocking his head on the sill in his haste, but finds his footing on the ladder rungs. His head peeks over the windowsill to get a last glimpse of her, a smile splitting his face, hers. She quickly hands him his messenger bag before he forgets, and his lips brush the inside of her wrist as she pulls it back through the window.

 

She gives him one last smile before shutting the window and races to meet her mother at the foot of the stairs. “Betty,” she greets innocently before pointing out the front window. “Whose motorcycle is that?” They both watch Jughead hop on and ride off. Her mother gives her a look demanding an explanation. Alice takes in Betty’s bathrobe, and her mother’s ire sharpens. “Please tell me he was not in your room just now.”

 

A short unladylike guffaw escapes from Betty, and she slaps her hands over her mouth. “What? Mom, no.” Her mother gives her a suspicious look. “He’s coming from Archie’s, jeez. How would he even get into my room?” She escapes her mother up the stairs, hears her threaten to lock that damn ladder in the garage.

 

Betty collapses on her bed with a heady smile, the congestion of her thoughts a fading memory. Her phone rings, the song she uses for unknown numbers, a candy store jingle. She swipes right and presses the phone to her ear, chirps out a girlish hello, feels a little silly but figures she is still high on Juggie.  

 

“Hello, Betty. This is the Black Hood speaking.”

 

* * *

 

 

**November 2017**

**Jughead**

**My Blue Supreme by Interpol**

 

What remains of the Andrews, the Lodges, and the Coopers gather around the dinner table, and he, the last and only Jones on the left takes his place between Betty and Fred at the head of the table. He always preferred the corner slot at Thanksgiving because it gave him better access to more side dish options, but this year Fred assigns him a seat to show him how to carve the turkey. Jughead tries to remember the last time the Jones had a turkey for Thanksgiving, and then he tries to remember if they ever had one or if the only times were when the Andrews invited the Jones over. Those invitations were few and far between as Jughead neared the end of junior high.

 

He feels Betty reach for his hand under the table, pulling it into her lap to cradle it in both her hands, her palms warm and dry and comforting in the nest of her dinner napkin. She must feel the clammy cold on his palm when she leans over to whisper in his ear, “Just stay close to the bone, Jug.” He knows he shouldn’t be so nervous. Fred will be doing most of the work, but he wants Jughead to watch, learn, finish the limbs himself, and serve the bird. He wants Jughead to be a part of this.

 

“Elizabeth,” her mother’s furtive whisper on Betty’s other side. He feels Betty lean away, bending her other ear to her mother, but he catches the tail end of whatever Alice murmurs to her daughter. “That top is too low cut, dear, don’t you think?” Betty glances at her shell-pink sweater, the V cut dipping down her collar.

 

Jughead gives her hands a reassuring squeeze, tugging her attention back. “I like it,” he whispers to her.

 

She smiles and rolls her eyes. “Of course you do,” she mumbles back when he kisses her temple, her cheekbone, ignoring the sharp look from Alice out of the corner of his eye, pulling away only when Alice clears her throat.

 

Veronica, seated across the table between Archie and Polly, gives Betty an inquiring look, and Betty’s hands tighten around Jughead’s as she feels too many eyes on her, conjuring up the image of a boa constricting. He feels Veronica’s foot kick his own under the table, somehow accusatory, like Alice’s ill will towards him and Betty’s unease about it are automatically his fault.

 

He feels the need to insert himself between Alice’s judgments and Betty’s anxieties, feels the need to defend himself, always, for being the one Betty chose, and it still stings that Alice doesn’t find him worthy. But then he realizes no one will ever be worthy in Alice Cooper’s eyes, that her daughter is invaluable. On that, he and Alice can agree. Perhaps he might do better to keep the peace and not antagonize his girlfriend’s mother further, he thinks, feeling the sharp and lasting sting of Veronica’s heel on his shin. As Betty would say, pick your battles, play a tactful defense. Even if Alice is wrong. Betty is the most beautiful girl Jughead has ever seen. He wants her to always know that.

 

“This is more secret whispering than I’m used to at the dinner table,” Freddie interjects, knife and carving fork in his hands, poised above the freshly roasted and steaming bird. “Are we planning a coup?” Archie assures his dad he still has control of the turkey, even if there is a considerable amount of crosstalk. It is all very uncommon for an Andrews Thanksgiving. Jughead wants to explain that whenever the Coopers are involved at any family function, in-fighting is a given, but he expects Betty might give him a firm jab in the side for that fun fact and their hand holding would come to a swift painful end.

 

Her mother offers to handle grace, and she begins some weird recitation from the Farm. Jughead spies Polly at the other end of the table, the twins in high chairs on either side, her head bowed and her lips moving as she chants the grace under her breath. When he looks to Betty, she shakes her head, _don’t ask_.

 

Fred awkwardly thanks Alice for her grace before starting on the turkey. He makes quick expert work of the breast meat, the sharp blade staying close to the bone as he removes an entire half and places it on the platter. For a man who makes a living by his hands, he knows how to carve a bird, wasting very little. When he finishes the breast meat, he offers the knife and fork to Jughead, prompting him to stand at the head of the table with him. Jughead isn’t sure why this gives him crippling stage fright. He has known each person at this table, except Veronica, since he could barely walk, and maybe that is why. Carving the turkey for his family, for the family he chose, or more accurately that chose him, he feels the need to show he can walk. He can act.

 

He feels the judgment radiating off Alice as he presses the blade through the joints, using the carving fork to place the limbs on the serving platter. This is the part that is hard to screw up, but she looks at him like he is making a hatchet job of the carcass, missing all the best parts, like anything he touches will spoil the bird for the entire table.

 

He serves Alice first, a small token gesture, but she forgoes the carving fork that he touched and uses her utensils to remove a slice of turkey breast, the part Fred handled with care. “Thank you, Jug-Head.” He doesn’t think Alice will ever give him the final stamp of approval as he turns to Betty with the serving platter. He feels her palm against his lower back, rubbing with assurance, asking politely for a slice of turkey breast and a wing.

 

Jughead recalls his last Thanksgiving spent with the Andrews. There had been a nightmare or two preceding Thanksgiving because Jughead had yet to get around to telling Archie about his developing relationship with Betty. Those days Archie was always on edge. Even when Fred was up and walking around again, Archie stood guard in the foyer with Vegas loyally curled at his feet. When Jughead attempted to broach the subject about Archie’s issues with Veronica, the ginger guard dog nearly bit his head off. It was that kind of attitude towards relationships and feelings that had Jughead wary, apprehensive about admitting his feelings for Betty, explaining that Betty felt the same because the only two people whose presence Archie seemed to tolerate in those weeks were Betty and Jughead, to some extent. He didn’t want to be the one to nudge Archie off the edge with some other radical change in his social structure.

 

In the end, it didn’t matter. He was glad he didn’t tell Archie because, a few days before his first Andrews Thanksgiving as the singular Jones, Betty broke up with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me in on your thoughts :)


	5. villains of circumstance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the lovely feedback and comments! And another appreciative thank you to my betas _heartunsettledsoul_ and _imserpentking_ , whom battled sickness and crazy schedules to help me with this. I hope you all enjoy this next iteration of _the devil's daughter_.

**November 2016**

**Betty**

**Wrecking Ball by Interpol**

 

Betty stares at the last text message he sent her. _I’m around the corner, Juliet_. She drinks her coffee black to steel her resolve, but it has gone cold and tastes burnt. It serves its purpose. It reminds her of what she has to do. It tastes like him but less, worse, where she needs them to be. The last sip of coffee is filled with grounds that grate down the back of her throat.

 

Her mother is not at home. The Hood must have planned for that, opened this window of opportunity for her to broker no room for excuses.

 

She carefully, painstakingly gathers her thoughts. It’s a chore. Her eyes flicker to the notepad open on her desk, wondering if she has enough time to quickly outline her thoughts before Jughead arrives.

 

_Convince him, Betty._ His bastardized voice was an unsettling contrast to the fifties bubblegum jingle that presaged his call. _You’re too important, Betty, too precious. And he’s dangerous._

 

_More dangerous than you?_ She challenged.

 

_At least I’m honest about it._

 

She doesn’t have the chance to outline her thoughts when the tapping comes at her bedroom window. He looks over the moon to see her, antsy to get through the window, tapping like an overeager little kid. Is there a storm behind the calm of that affectionate smile? What violence hides inside those considerate hands, the same hands that reach for her once he is through the window. It helps and hurts at the same time, the certainty in his touch unraveling the knot of her thoughts, making this easier in all the worst ways.

 

They take a seat on the edge of her bed, his palm warm and heavy on her thigh. The coffee sours in her empty stomach when he kisses her because it feels life-affirming. It is the only thing she wants to be doing, over and over. He gets mock serious for a second. “Oh no.”

 

A surge of panic. “What?” Can he sense her unease?

 

“I don’t think I can stop kissing you,” he declares, the solemn line of his mouth breaking into a teasing smile. He leaves the content mark on her lips, and she senses the comforting smile trying to wedge its way onto her own face, his lips traveling across her cheek to her ear.

 

“Juggie,” she murmurs, closing her eyes tight against the burning around the edges. He _mms_ like he heard her but his mouth opens on her jawline, teeth grazing. “Juggie, wait.” His hand slides across her lower belly towards her hipbone to angle her better. “Jug, we need to talk,” she tries, the pitch of her voice seesawing.

 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

 

More panic seizes in her chest, and she gently presses her palm against his shoulder to put some distance between them. He whines a little in the back of his throat, for once oblivious to any of her cues, his lips searching for her mouth again. It is painfully adorable, so much so that she gives him one last hasty kiss, and then he senses the urgency in it, his forehead crinkling as he pulls away.

 

“What is it?”

 

The bottom drops in her gut, and she chews her bottom lip even as her fingers rub at the worry lines above his brow.

 

“You agreed that we didn’t have to talk about these things, so let’s not. We don’t have to,” he contends, his fingers massaging her hipbone insistently. His other hand finds hers, the pads of his fingers moving between her own with reassurance.

 

“No, Jug, I need to.” She untangles her hand from his, and it looks like it physically hurts him, the intentional separation. “It feels too fast, Jug.” Betty hides her hand under the pillow where she curls her nails into her palm, like setting the bar too high for a lie detector test, a spike in pain to cover up every untruth.

 

It is like a switch. He is nearly frantic. She can see his thoughts scrambling, reaching for counterarguments, rationalizations, anything to prevent this conversation from taking its course. “It feels too fast for me, too, but it feels right,” he tries. “Is it something else? What is it? You can tell me things, Betty. You can tell me anything, please.”

 

There it is, her opening, and she hates it, hates that she could easily uncover that imperfect chink. Jughead is like a bruised apple, she thinks, but he keeps those soft spots sequestered away so all she sees is the one who doesn’t care, who doesn’t hold on, who lets go too readily, and suddenly she worries this will be too easy. _Get your head in the game, Betty_. _Convince him or you lose him_. Permanently. “Why can’t you, Jughead?”

 

“What?”

 

“What aren’t you telling me, Jug? What haven’t you been telling me?”

 

“I’m not – what do you want to hear?”

 

“It’s not about what I want to hear, Jughead,” she reasons, her anger rising. This is good. This is what she needs to get this done, but she deflates just as quickly until all that is left is disappointment. “Maybe we don’t trust each other enough.”

 

“You don’t trust me?”

 

“I’m scared,” she admits without saying what about. She is, though, terrified of so many things, of herself, of the Black Hood, and yes, maybe of Jughead, a little, afraid of what he hides, of what he doesn’t tell her. What could possibly be so awful that he cannot tell her?

 

“Do I scare you?” He sounds desperate, looks sick with the thought. And now he is standing, pacing, all physical contact broken. “Is this about my dad?”

 

She stands with him, reaching for him but he sidesteps, eyes her hands like they are weapons. She closes the fingers of her right hand quickly to hide the bleeding moons. Her terror is mounting because now she isn’t sure of what is real and what is forced about this argument, the lines between her honest fears and her planned concerns blurring together. “We haven’t really talked about it.”

 

“What is there to talk about?”

 

“You said you didn’t think it was him.” And it ended up being him, FP. His father confessed. They spent the majority of the semester trying to find Jason Blossom’s killer, and it ended up being Jughead’s dad the whole time.

 

“I didn’t.”

 

It’s a lie. The thought makes her stomach turn. She turns away from Jughead so he cannot see the grim realization blooming on her face. How long has he been lying to her? What else has he lied about? And the only reason she ferrets out this one because he is flustered caught off guard. She spins on him. “Or you didn’t want to think it was him, Jug?” She tries this because maybe it isn’t true. Maybe he just hoped it wasn’t FP, but she subjected her own family to the murder board. She put herself out there, and he didn’t. “We put everyone up there,” she cites. “I put my dad up there, Jug!”

 

He looks defeated, resigned, when he confesses, “I didn’t want to think it was him.”

 

Nothing feels real anymore. She doesn’t know if that’s the truth or another manipulation. But, it isn’t over. She still has the final nail in the coffin. “What about Retro Night?”

 

He doesn’t play dumb with this one. She can see it on his face – she has his number. “We were just talking.”

 

“About what?”

 

“My dad. They wanted to know how he was, if I’d gone to see him yet.”

 

“My mother said she saw several drug deals go down that night, that one of those Serpents you were talking to, he was part of it.”

 

“You think I was talking about drugs with my dad’s gang?” He sounds incredulous. “Me? And drugs?”

 

“I don’t know what to think anymore, Jughead. Are you going to join the Serpents?”

 

“No!” He bursts out, his hands moving to take hers, but she pulls them out of reach. “Betty,” he tries, stepping towards her. “Are you scared of me?” He must wonder if that is the only thing prompting this, his sketchy relationship with the Serpents, what he will have to say to mollify her fears. But if it is fear of something else, of him particularly, she can see him chewing relentlessly on the thought.

 

“I don’t know, Jug.”

 

“You know I would never hurt you.” Like it is obvious, like it should be apparent and indisputable, and she believes him. He would never physically hurt her. But.

 

“But, the Serpents, they do don’t they? They hurt people. Your dad, he’s their leader and he killed Jason Blossom.”

 

“I’m not going to become a Serpent, Betty.”

 

She turns away from him, her arms folding tight across her middle, feels her stomach grumbling around bitter coffee grounds. “I need some space to figure things out.”

 

“What? What does that mean?” She knows what it sounds like.

 

“We’re just so different.”

 

He surprises her by grabbing her arms, pulling her towards him, and she can sense the desperation in his hands, can see the panic in his eyes. He tries to kiss her, but she turns her face away. “We can make this work,” he argues, beckoning her to look at him. “We just need to stop overthinking it!”

 

She levels her gaze with him, ready to push him away if he tries to kiss her again. “I’m not overthinking it, Jug. I’m thinking. I’m doing the appropriate amount of thinking. Please just give me some time, some space.”

 

“Space.” The word sounds foreign coming from his mouth, like it has been exchanged too many times throughout this conversation to have any real meaning left. His hands slide from her arms, falling like dead weight at his sides. Then she sees it, spreading like an infection from his hands up through his shoulders, his neck, washing across his features, like watching a crack spread across an iced-over river.

 

“Wait,” she backtracks. “I’m still your friend, Juggie.” His rage flashes with the familiarity of the nickname. She is the only one that calls him that. He turns to leave, faithfully creating the space she requested. “Wait, Juggie.” This time she grabs him, the reality hitting her, losing him. Thinking to herself at the start that this would only be temporary, a small and clean break from each other, not a compound fracture.

 

He placates her, gently untangling her fingers from the sherpa lapels of his jacket. “It’s okay, Betty.” His face has changed, that blink of rage nothing but an aberration, and now he sounds so sincere, calm, resigned. A good act, she thinks. She doesn’t want to leave it like this. “It’s okay. I understand,” he tells her, placing her hands at her sides. When his fingers tenderly swipe across her broken palm, she winces. He lets her go immediately, but his expression still doesn’t change, a kicked puppy smile that she wishes would never grace his face again.

 

Her mind shuts down, like a blue screen of death. It must, because when she reboots, Jughead is gone. The only evidence he was ever here nothing but a scuff of black on the bench seat cushion under her window and a smear of red on her palm.

 

* * *

 

**November 2016**

**Jughead**

**Villains of Circumstance by Queens of the Stone Age**

 

After she kissed him first that night in Greendale, he could feel the shift between them, in how she oriented herself around him, touching him more familiarly, with other intentions. It was always well-meaning and friendly before, but now there is a charge, an undercurrent and an ache that might only be soothed if he could do more. And he wants to. God, he wants to do more if only to feel all the tension yield where he touches her. He realizes it is his favorite feeling in the world.

 

He thought maybe he would overstep inviting her to the trailer. He tidied up after the raid, but he took extra care when he made plans to bring her. The cop broke quite a few things, some lamps, torn loops on the drapes that he had to put up the old ones, the threadbare ones, hoping she wouldn’t notice. While the Jones didn’t own much to begin with, the trailer looked sparser after the bulls ran through. He debated whether that was better or worse than her seeing it trashed, but he wanted privacy, something in short supply at the Andrews, the Coopers.

 

He repeated to himself, baby steps, but then she was in his trailer, reachable, and he lost himself. Working a case always got him going, but then he wondered, when she sabotaged his work, his thoughtful underlining, maybe the investigation excited her, too. Or maybe it was being alone together, the combination, and with how many times he had fantasized kissing her during a murder board brainstorm or making out after a key break, now he could. Now he could place his hand on her thigh, and instead of the perfunctory rejection he expected, he could feel her legs part just a little in quiet permission, her lip, pink and full, pinched between her teeth as she waited for him to make a move.

 

He kept telling himself to be careful, slow down, then her leg was hooking around his hip, and he drew her closer as if on instinct alone. The heat between her legs on his thigh sent him reeling, feeling it through her tights, through his jeans, that the careful part of him, the patient part of him short-circuited. Suddenly she was nearly on top of him, overwhelming him with each assisted slide of her body against his, and all of his doubts about her feelings dissolved behind the euphoria of her mouth on his, her fingers carding through his hair, the little sighs, and whimpers of her pleasure that he could elicit, the heat he could feel from her mouth, her hands, between her legs.

 

Jughead never imagined he would get the chance, but now that he has, he cannot go back. He was so close. He can’t go back now.

 

Betty does it as well as Jughead, burying doubts, tiptoeing around distrust, waiting until she had enough evidence to convict. He had his own about her, her connections to the Hood, the letter. Even well before that, his apprehension about reruns of the Archie and Betty show, spin-offs with Chuck Clayton, Reggie Mantle, Trev Brown, but she kissed Jughead.

 

For over a week, she saved up these misgivings, and when Jughead least suspected, she took aim at his insecurities. Kiss-drunk and sedate, the contented web of his thoughts ruptured like scattershot when she whispered that it felt too fast, whatever was developing between them, and he could acknowledge that, yes, it felt full steam but right, perfect tempo. He just wanted to keep touching her, but at some point during the argument, his touch made it worse, that somehow her speech became clearer, her delivery more precise. Then she confessed she was scared and everything hurt, a generalized pain that made it difficult to think straight, think past the nausea rolling in his gut, thinking about the last time he saw his mother, terror-sick with the thought.

 

The issue of his father’s confession and the fact Jughead never suggested him for the murder, how could he think it would never come up? She is smarter than that, and he should have expected this. _You insulted her when you didn’t_.

 

And the Serpents hunting him down during Retro Night while Betty ran around trying to save Pop’s, failing to notice while her mother surveilled from the corner booth. He should have expected Alice Cooper to catch that one. Betty mentioning the drug deals, he knew about that. He noticed it that night, too, picking up hints of his father’s gang starting to deal in harder drugs. Tall Boy approached him and suggested Jughead pay his father a visit. When he tried to ask why, the man admitted he really didn’t know himself, but Betty witnessed the exchange.

 

At first, he thought it was only an argument, a lover’s spat, that all Betty wanted were a few admissions, and he told her as much as he could. It was a laundry list of declarations, he thought, commandments to guide their fledgling relationship. He had no desire to join the Serpents. He would never deal drugs. And though he imagined it went without saying, he would never hurt her. Maybe it is an exaggeration, but he would die first. He thought that would be enough, some healthy confession for the sinner and then he could hold her again, kiss her again, have her smile after, green-eyed and content. But, she didn’t. He was about to slide back into the easy rapport of their relationship, some playful banter on the tip of his tongue, and then that word formed between them, so solid even though it connoted emptiness – space. _We’re just so different_.  

 

The panic set in. He wasn’t really thinking when he grabbed her, tried to kiss her, felt like an asshole when he realized what he had done, practically forcing himself on her like some base cretin, like Chuck fucking Clayton. And it hit him then. He was right. They were different, too different. There are things he can never tell her, things he can never share about himself, things he would not have been able to hide for long from Riverdale’s resident Nancy Drew. They had an expiration date. It just came sooner than he anticipated. He was selfish to even push their sell-by date. And he was – is – a liar, about Jason Blossom, the Serpents, his father.

 

He had been dodging his father’s calls for weeks. Even now trudging away from Betty’s house, the sting of rejection still fresh, his chest bruised mush, his phone rings from his pocket. He recognizes the number by now, swiping right and pressing the receiver to his ear. “Do you accept the charges?”

 

He feels the customary reply on the tip of his tongue, tempted to tell the automated voice to go fuck itself before hanging up, but he mutters a yes. He hopes maybe the robot cannot decipher that simple syllable, but then he hears the click of connection and his father’s gravelly voice in his ear, staticky distance and the shit reception evident. “Give us a visit, Jug.”

 

Jughead looks up at Betty Cooper’s window, the faint green light through her gauzy white curtains making it seem warm and yellow like muted sunshine through trees. He thinks he can keep lying to her, lying forever until they start piling. Haven’t they already? They were a marked deck from the start. She caught on, and somehow he loves her more for it. He always admired her awareness, her observant consideration, that while he could fly under everyone else’s radar, he could not evade her. _You’re a piece of shit, Jones_.

 

“I’ll see you on Thanksgiving,” he tells his father, and it feels a lot like defeat when the dial tone sounds. He looks down at the phone balanced on the tips of his fingers, catches a visceral stripe of red on his thumb, and it reminds him of that first afternoon in the  _Blue and Gold_ when he caught her asleep, thinking that underneath all that demure pink was so much irascible red. 

 

* * *

 

 

He practices shooting .45s and nines with Doiley the afternoon before Thanksgiving break. Doiley even shows Jug how to shoot a hunting rifle, explains he is going turkey hunting with his grandfather for the holiday. Jughead is surprised Doiley doesn’t bring up the incident in the _Blue and Gold_ with Betty, or the night Doiley found out about his secret. He treats Jughead with the same remote interest and distant camaraderie as always, offering passing pointers about shooting stance, a quip about single versus double action, and Jughead kind of missed this feeling, the presence of another person he didn’t have to feel responsible for, that they could be anybody to each other. All that mattered was they were there, if only briefly.

 

“Hey, I want to show you something.”

 

_Holy hell, please let this not be the moment where Doiley reveals he planned to murder me all along_ , Jughead thinks, letting Dilton lead him further into the woods past their usual shooting spot. He knows the chances are good the magazine of the Ruger in his hand is empty but prays maybe there is still one in the chamber, just in case.

 

Dilton, the rifle slung across his shoulder, shoves the .45 Colt in his adventure scout pants and reaches for a branch under a bundle of twigs and dried maple leaves. Jughead watches him draw the branch across the forest floor, taking the blanket of natural detritus with it and revealing a secret hatch.

 

“No one knows about this place except for me and my grandfather,” Doiley discloses, pulling the heavy metal latch and lifting the blast door.

 

He lets Dilton lead the way, but before he takes one step down into whatever hell hole Dilton Doiley has kept hidden in the middle of Fox Forest, Jughead pulls the slide back on his Ruger while his friend-not-friend descends, one comforting bullet popping up into his hand. He drops the magazine, slips the bullet inside the top, and replaces the magazine quickly, expertly, thinking his practice with Doiley is paying off. Then the sound of Doiley’s feet hitting the metal rungs stops. Jughead stuffs the Ruger down the front of his jeans and looks down to see Dilton’s shadowy face gazing up at him from the uncertain depths of the hatch entrance. “Are you coming or not?”

 

Jughead starts to think maybe he should have gone down first, knowing if Doiley has something horrific planned, he will make the first move on Jughead’s last step. “What the hell is this thing?”

 

Dilton continues climbing down the ladder and shouts up, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. “It’s a bunker. My granddad built it in the sixties during the Cuban missile crisis.”

 

Jughead watches Dilton’s head disappear in the darkness of the bunker and wonders if he should drop a quick pin on his phone and send it to Archie. He checks his phone. No service. Not even enough connection to discern where he might be on the map. The pulsing blue dot shows his last location as the spot where he parked his motorcycle on Fox Forest road. It is probably about a mile west of the bunker. Dilton doesn’t know how Jughead got to their shooting spot today. He knows Jughead usually cuts across Wyndham’s field which abuts the Twilight drive-in. Then Jughead wonders why he cares what Dilton Doiley has planned for him in his secret bunker in the middle of nowhere Fox Forest. He turns his phone off and places one boot on the first rung.

 

When Jughead drops off the last rung, he spies Dilton lighting an oil lantern set atop a single card table in the middle of the space. The shaking light casts wobbly shadows across the severe rise of the concrete walls surrounding them like a tomb, casting a sharp shadow up Dilton’s brow and making it seem deeper, more uncompromising. Dilton unslings the rifle and props it up against a set of sturdy shelves holding bulk packs of canned beans and fruit.

 

“This is my most secret spot,” Doiley reveals, sounding like a ten-year-old boy showing Jughead his secret clubhouse, no girls allowed. Jughead’s misgivings shrink a little with the thought. “My grandfather built it when it seemed like we were going to get bombed by the communists. They were running drills and simulations every day. Doileys don’t take chances.” Dilton places the Colt on the card table. No weapons in his hands now except for the hunting knife in the holster on his belt. “Do you know what happens to bodies at ground zero?”

 

Jughead knows. He steps up to the card table and places the Ruger next to the Colt. Dilton watches him do this with those unblinking shark eyes and describes it for Jughead, without prompting, what happens to people in a nuclear blast. “Flesh and bone reduced to its most basic components, instantly vaporized.” Dilton snaps his fingers at this. “You’re lucky if you’re a shadow. I don’t want to be nothing but a shadow.”

 

Jug arranges the guns so the muzzles point directly away from both of them. “You will be, though,” Jughead contends. “All of us will be, eventually, bomb or no bomb.” There is a moment of quiet, intense quiet made more noticeable since they are inside a bunker surrounded by soundproof walls, without the white noise of nature to break up the mutual silence that usually punctuates their ‘meet-ups.’ Jughead turns to look at Dilton, wondering why the kid who usually has a cutting retort for everything is suddenly mute, and then he feels Dilton’s mouth against his own.

 

Dilton’s lips are stiff and puckered as if he has never kissed anyone before, like a cartoon kiss, or a little kid kiss. Then Jughead thinks, maybe he hasn’t. He lets Dilton kiss him, though, makes no move toward or away from his ‘friend’, waits patiently for Doiley to pull away first. Jughead doesn’t close his eyes, studies how Doiley’s face is scrunched up, his brow wrinkled, eyes crinkled shut, lips a tight pucker, as if forcing himself to do this.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jughead says afterward, not knowing how else to react when Doiley drops back on his heels. Jug forgets he is at least four inches taller.  

 

“Don’t be,” Doiley says simply, no inflection, no shame. Jughead cannot tell if he means it. “I’m not stupid, Jones. You’re in love with Betty Cooper. I’m just balancing the scales. I have your dirty secret. Now you have one of mine.” 

 

“That’s very,” Jughead tries to search for the right word. “Generous of you.” Still doesn’t feel quite right, but Doiley accepts it. “You’re a weird friend, Doiley.” He means it well, really. Doiley gets that.

 

“I got you something.” Doiley fishes around in his scout pants pulls a patch from his back pocket. “It’s the shooting badge. I think you’ve earned it by now.”

 

Jughead takes the patch, the green border, the embroidered bullets in the middle. “I didn’t know you were so sentimental, Doiley.”

 

“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” Dilton admits, for the first time sounding a little embarrassed. “And I don’t think I’m – you know, gay. I don’t know what I am. I just wanted to know what it felt like.”

 

“First impressions?” Jughead wonders.

 

“I didn’t like it.” Straightforward to a fault but Jughead prefers him blunt. There is no guesswork with Dilton Doiley. Everything is on the surface.

 

“Maybe you’ll find someone soon, you know, who you will like doing that with, kissing.”

 

“Have you kissed Betty Cooper yet?”

 

Jughead feels like they are two boys at summer camp experimenting with each other while talking about girls. Jughead never got to go to summer camp. He never wanted to join the scouts. He doesn’t talk about girls with anyone, barely Archie who knows better than to ask.

 

“Why? Are you thinking about trying it with her?”

 

Dilton seems to consider this seriously, and Jughead forces himself to maintain, stay neutral. Dilton is figuring things out. He is being honest, open with Jughead about something he obviously doesn’t feel comfortable talking about with other people, with anyone really. The least Jughead could do is try to keep his own conflicts of interest out of the equation. Then Dilton smiles, that smug smirk reminding Jughead how unsettling Doiley can be.

 

Dilton laughs. “Sorry, I’m thinking about what you would do to me if I tried. Your face pretty much said it all.”

 

“Betty can make her own choices. You can, too,” Jughead declares, willing himself to believe the words, to believe he wouldn’t do anything if such an unexpected thing ever happened, Dilton Doiley and Betty Cooper locking lips. But then, Jug bets no one would believe him if he said Dilton Doiley kissed him on the mouth in his secret bunker in the middle of Fox Forest, so maybe they have all entered the Twilight Zone without noticing.

 

“Okay, Jones, keep playing that guy.” Jug forgets Doiley can always see right through him. There aren’t too many of those people around, not too many left.

 

“You can stay here when you want,” Doiley says, extending an open invitation. “I don’t care, just make sure you cover up the entrance if you’re going to be in here long and especially when you leave.” He regards Jughead for a moment, that dissecting look he has perfected. “Okay, Jones, I have to go home. My grandfather and I are driving north to the Doiley cabin. I’ll leave the handguns here if you want to practice over the holidays.”

 

“Right.” Jughead turns to go. They never say goodbye, and he doesn’t feel like starting now.

 

Fred Andrew corners him on his way out of the woods, and Jughead wipes his hands on his pants thinking Fred might see the gunshot residue on his knuckles. “Hey Jug, I saw your motorcycle parked. I thought you might be somewhere close.”

 

Jughead wonders if Fred just got there, if he heard the gunshots over the sound of the Bronco’s roaring engine going highway speeds, if he thought the worst, but the man doesn’t seem wary or nervous. Jughead can only imagine what hearing gunshots would do to Fred’s nerves. A man as levelheaded and reasonable as Fred Andrews might still draw awful conclusions about hearing random gunshots in Fox Forest even if it is the tail end of hunting season. Seeing Jughead’s motorcycle and imagining the worst, the stitches still fresh in Fred’s stomach. Based on his unconcerned demeanor, Jughead safely assumes Fred did not hear them shooting guns in the woods.

 

“You haven’t come home in a few days. Archie says you’ve been skipping some classes.” There is the concern. Jughead wonders if Fred would rat him out to social services. And Archie the snitch. He has skipped every class he has with her, biology and English, coincidentally sharing biology with her and Archie but not English, his only honors course. He skips free period, too, but he isn’t sure that counts, even if he shares it with her, their journalism independent study.

 

Mr. Andrews gives his motorcycle a long once-over, recognizes it, but it is Jughead’s helmet resting on the seat. “Jughead, I understand it’s been chaos the last couple weeks. It’s been a rough transition overall, I’m sure, but I --.” He pauses and looks at Jughead, standing on the edge of the woods and the paved shoulder, mud on his jean legs and GSR on the backs of his hands and the confusing feeling of Dilton Doiley’s lips lingering on his own. Fred’s stance shifts to something like resolve, pulling his hands out of his pockets. “What’s it gonna take to get you to come home, Jug?”

 

Home. The thought of sitting in Archie’s bedroom looking across the side yard at Betty’s window fills him with indescribable dread. “I’m not sleeping on the streets, Mr. Andrews,” he assures him. Sometimes the trailer, though the heat is out, so it was the janitor’s closet last night.

 

“That’s not the point.” Fred looks at his motorcycle again. Correction, his father’s motorcycle. “You have a home, Jughead. We, I care about you, about what happens to you.” Fred’s steadfast and pacifying gaze lands back on him, sealing Jughead to the earth where he stands. “I care if you go to school and that you have a warm bed to sleep in at night and that you’re well fed, even if your appetite rivals that of a sumo wrestler.” Jughead still feels kind of sorry about that. He has cleaned out the Andrews refrigerator a few times since he moved in, always offering to restock but Fred turned him down every time, reasoning he was a growing boy, that he was raising two now and should expect things like this to happen.

 

The idea comes to Jug, something that might placate Fred for a while and something that might keep Jughead busy, his mind off other things, keep him out of the house and away from Betty. “I want a job.”

 

“A job,” Fred repeats, rolling the idea around.

 

“The Twilight is closed until spring. You’re not allowed to lift a hammer and Archie is too focused on school and sports and Veronica right now. I’m looking for a job. I have time.” Too much time that he is screwing around with Dilton Doiley in the woods again, now that his Betty and _Blue and Gold_ responsibilities are all but halved if not reduced to nothing.

 

“I can start you after the holiday,” Fred agrees. “It can be an opportunity for you to earn a little spending money.” Then maybe he could keep the trailer in case of emergency, maybe pay the heating bill. And maybe Jughead could replace some of the groceries he demolishes on a regular basis in the Andrews house. But he thinks construction work will inevitably triple his appetite. It has already doubled since he broke up with Betty. He needs to stop thinking about her. His mind keeps circling back on its own, his thoughts like a pitiless nickelodeon that has her on a cruel and constant loop.

 

Fred snaps his attention back with a firm edict. “But you’re going to school, Jughead. You’re gonna go to every class, and you are going to graduate. And you are going to come home and sleep in your own bed. I’ve convinced Archie to take the garage once I install more than a space heater.” Jughead forces himself not to smile because he is pretty sure Archie didn’t need much convincing, thinks that is the sweeter end of the deal, easier to sneak Veronica in without Fred finding out. But, at this moment, Jughead would much rather be sequestered away in the garage. Sitting across from the Cooper house staring at the only thing he wants and cannot have – he would rather swallow razor blades. “Do I make myself clear? Or no job.”

 

“Right.” Fred gives him a look. “Yes, sir.”

 

“You coming to Thanksgiving?”

 

_Shit._ “I’m going to see my dad,” he admits and then offers an excuse. “I haven’t seen him since his arraignment, and visiting hours are different, longer than normal, on holidays. I figured I owed him a visit.” Parts of this statement are lies. _Yeah, you owe him more than that, Jones._

 

“You don’t think you can make dinner?”  

 

“I’ll try to make it back.” Noncommittal, he isn’t sure how long this meeting with FP will take.

 

Fred claps him on the shoulder, accepts his answer. “Dinner at six tonight.” He gives the motorcycle one last skeptical look. “Be careful on that thing. The roads are icy.” Jughead nods, lets himself enjoy the paternal shoulder squeeze for a moment before Fred gets back inside his Bronco.

 

* * *

 

 

The guards buzz him into the visiting room, and his father doesn’t stand up to offer some gesture of familiarity, a hug or a should pat, not like the other families in the meeting room. FP doesn’t look at Jug until he stands in his field of vision.

 

Jughead can feel the cold metal through his jeans and shrugs his jacket closer, keeping his hands stuffed in his pockets until one of the guards gives him the eye, forfeiting his palms to the even colder metal tabletop. “You didn’t call me for your hearing, so I assumed we weren’t on speaking terms anymore.”

 

“I called you, Jug.”

 

“Yeah, after.”

 

“So, why dodge my calls?”

 

“Maybe because I know this isn’t a social call. Are we shooting shat? If that’s the case, then why send your goons to hound me?”

 

“You look pent up, Jug.”

 

“Are you projecting, pop?”

 

His dad finally cracks a smile, but when his gaze settles on the guard standing under the barred windows, he sobers up. “You’re gonna do something for me.” As every trace of jest fades from his father’s demeanor, Jughead feels his choice in the matter disappear.

 

“Penny Peabody, you remember her. She was my counsell for a couple of DUIs back in the day.” Sure, Jughead remembers her, vaguely, from a handful of rare visits to the trailer. Once freshman year when Jughead was suspended for fighting (read: Reggie Mantle shoved him in the locker room and Jughead defended himself before it went farther than that) and FP had to collect him from the principal’s office before Weatherbee called social services. It was one of the handful of times his father came through for him. Jughead doesn’t remember where Gladys was at the time, only that she didn’t answer the phone. FP did. Jug was forced to tag along with his father to Penny’s office behind a tattoo parlor, and Jug snickered when she made a quip about _being closer to her clients_. FP smacked him on the back of the head.

 

“What about her?” He didn’t think his father had a problem with Penny Peabody. The woman had bailed him out enough times.

 

“She’s making a play, trying to get the Serpents in Hiram Lodge’s boat, the hard stuff. It’s just a new master now that Blossom has given up the ghost,” his father explains. Jughead watches him obsessively flicking his thumb against his forefinger and wonders when FP had his last cigarette. His father leans forward to whisper, “Take care of her.”

 

“What?” Jughead forces himself not to look at the guards but hears one order FP to sit back.

 

“You’re not a Serpent, so the rules don’t apply to you. It’s my personal loophole,” FP boasts, cracking his knuckles one at a time as he replants on the cold metal bench seat.

 

“Is that why you kept me out of it?”

 

“No,” his father admits. “It’s just a happy accident, Jug.”

 

The unspoken _just like you_ embeds itself inside Jug like another apple in his fucked up Gregor Samsa life. “You know what you’re asking?”

 

“Yeah.” And he asks Jughead here because no one is going to say boo about his son visiting him in prison. He asks Jughead for a host of reasons, none of them fatherly. But, he isn’t asking, Jughead reminds himself.

 

“I thought you wanted me out of it.”

 

His father watches the couple at the adjacent table, their palms flat on the table, fingers as close as they dare but not enough to break the rules, not enough to touch, just enough to insinuate intent, communicate their want. FP’s fingers won’t stop twitching, rubbing against each other, itching and scratching at things that aren’t there anymore, things he took for granted. Jughead looks down at his hands, prostrate and still against the stainless steel. He curls them into fists. His father won’t look at him.

 

_In or out never mattered, Jones_ , he thinks. “You only care about your own fucking skin, don’t you?” And his position.

 

FP snorts, smiles mean when he finally sets eyes on his son. “I’ve put a lot of stock into the Serpents, Jug.” _And none of it in your family_ , Jughead snipes to himself. “Trust me when I say it will work out in your favor, in the end. Tit for fucking tat.”

 

“I’m not joining them,” Jughead maintains.

 

“I’m not asking you to.”

 

“If I do this, I never have to.” Jughead’s leverage. “Deal?”

 

“Yeah, Jug, you have my word,” his father promises, mock crossing his heart. “They’ll need reassurance, though, so be creative. You’re good at that.” The implications are clear even while the specs of the job remain out of focus, blanks Jughead has to fill in himself with his _imagination_. “Happy Thanksgiving, Jughead.”

 

Jughead taps the table in acknowledgment as he gets up, glances at his father to toss a quick chummy _go fuck yourself_ before heading for the door to be mercifully buzzed out.  

 

* * *

 

 

He skips Thanksgiving dinner at the Andrews to pay a visit to the Wyrm, pleasantly surprised to find Topaz working the downstairs bar. He slides into a barstool with two empty ones on either side, enough distance for a private conversation, waits for Toni to sidle up for his order. The Wyrm is mostly empty thanks to the holiday, but a handful of soused saps lurk, a couple of old Serpents nursing Buds and playing pool in the corner.

“Boycotting the holiday, too, Topaz?”

 

“Considering what it represents to my people, Jones, yeah, I’ll pass.” She slaps a cocktail napkin down in front of him. “Are you taking up your daddy’s hobbies in his absence? You know he still has a tab open here. It’d be nice to settle some of it.”

 

“Sins of the father,” Jughead jokes but doesn’t place an order. He has ten dollars and change to his name. “Speaking of fathers, my dad said you could help me get some info on Penny Peabody.”

 

Toni’s demeanor shifts when he mentions the snake charmer, giving him a guarded look. “Is that your opening after how many months?”

 

“I’ve been busy.”

 

“Oh yeah, with what?” Making slow progress on the girl of his dreams and losing it all in under ten minutes. Not worth mentioning to Topaz. “Sweet Pea is rearing for a rematch by the way.” He realizes Toni is still trying to make small talk, a distraction from Peabody.

 

“I have something more important to deal with than Sweet Pea’s petty gambling habits,” Jughead argues. “But, I need to talk to him, too.” Because Sweet Pea is one of the sad sacks in hot water with Penny Peabody.

* * *

 

 

**December 2017**

**Jughead**

**Sweetest Kill by Broken Social Scene**

 

“So, Christmas is right around the corner,” Veronica initiates, twiddling with Archie’s fingers on the hand draped over her shoulder. “Are we doing Secret Santa again this year?”

 

“I don’t know,” Jughead says, mock contemplative. “Can we adhere to the twenty dollar limit this year?” He delivers a pointed look to Veronica across the table. “Or better yet, let’s make it free. It has to be something that doesn’t cost anything.”

 

Veronica frowns. “Where’s the fun in that?”

 

“There’s all the fun in it if you had an imagination,” Jughead counters, and Veronica looks like she might crawl across the table and strangle him if Archie didn’t have his arm around her, the redhead’s hand quickly clamping on her shoulder.

 

Jug feels Betty’s hand clasp high on his thigh, her grip chastising. He shifts his legs against the hold, keeping his gaze above the tabletop. “I think it’s a good idea, V,” she tries, inserting herself as the middle man while her hand tightens. Jughead counts his lucky stars it stays on his thigh, but he almost wants to lean over and whisper cheekily _a little higher to the right_. “It can be something sentimental or even homemade. Don’t you have anything you could repurpose?”

 

“I don’t know, probably,” Veronica speculates before glaring at Jug. “I’m worried Jughead will pick my name and gift me a jar of pickles and a dead battery.”

 

“How’d you know what I keep in my pantry, Veronica?” This reminds him to get groceries for the trailer, his secret stash.

 

“Because you’re basically the human equivalent of a Hoover vacuum,” Veronica scoffs, turning to Archie. “How do you live with him, Archie-kins? You must be starving,” she pouts, patting Archie’s washboard abs, a distant cry from malnourishment.

 

Archie defends his roommate. “Jughead contributes. Don’t worry, we have a system in place.”

 

Jughead snorts into his mug, spilling coffee down his chin. “By system, he means Fred gives me an allowance for food and I make up the difference.”

 

Betty double takes at that, turning her entire body towards him with sheer incredulity painting her face. “Wait. Fred makes you buy your own food?”

 

“Betty, I offered,” Jughead assures her, covering the hand on his thigh with his own. Veronica gives them both a queer look, wondering what the hell their hands are doing underneath the table. She nearly bends over to look, but Jughead replaces his hand on the tabletop to staunch her suspicions. “Otherwise, we’d never make it through winter in the Andrews house. Don’t worry, I can cover it.” When the Twilight is closed, he works construction and picks up the occasional shift during the summer, but it still makes him hungrier than ever. He glances at the kitchen, hoping any moment Pop will come shuffling out with his double cheeseburger.

 

“Does Archie pay for groceries?” Betty wonders, still sore that Jughead pays for his own food.

 

“Archie doesn’t eat his weight in food every day,” Veronica rebuts.

 

“I do,” Archie confesses, about pulling his weight on the grocery budget. “A little. Things are tight right now. Between the last of my dad’s medical bills.”

 

“And mine,” Jug interjects.

 

Archie nods tightly, continuing, “Times are lean right now, but my dad is about to break ground on a new housing development in Greendale. It should be a solid two years of work. We’ll be okay, eventually. If I have to break rocks to help my dad or pick up shifts at the gym, so be it.”

 

“And if I have to push overpriced popcorn at the Bijoux or ruin my pretty writer’s hands laying concrete, so be it,” Jughead adds, showcasing his scarred up hands, thinking privately to himself that construction didn’t put those dents there. Betty gathers them into hers and kisses them, making him smile and peck her on the cheek. It devolves into something racier, his mouth opening behind her ear, teeth on her lobe, until she scolds him gently, ducking her face away when Veronica groans with disgust.

 

He turns back to Archie and Veronica. “Besides, I think you like working at the gym, Archie. Lord knows I would rather you beat on a punching bag at the gym than above my head at all hours.” Fred finally decided to give Jughead the den downstairs, reasoning the cost would be too high to renovate the garage for heat. Jughead likes having the personal space, but Archie is heavy-footed and still uses the punching bag to help him sleep. Jug thinks he got the shit end of the stick on both ends, downstairs with no view of the Cooper house and underfoot of Rocky the elephant.

 

“Go hermit in the garage if you don’t like it, dude,” Archie argues.

 

“Move your punching bag in the garage like a considerate roommate, _bro,_ ” Jughead bites back. “How hard is it.”

 

The bell above the door dings and Jughead raises his gaze above Archie’s and Veronica’s heads. He hears Archie rope him into helping move the punching bag out of the main house and agrees without thinking, his attention on the folks who just waltzed into Pop’s. “Give me a moment, guys,” he says, interrupting Veronica mid-rant about something. Before leaving the booth, he turns to Betty and makes her promise, “If my food comes, defend my fries with your life.” He points an accusatory finger at Archie to drive it home. Her grip is still firm on his thigh, she asks him _what’s going on_ , but he tells her _later_ , leans over to whisper _everything’s alright_. She only murmurs _okay_ , watching him slide out of the booth towards the Serpents waiting by the door.

 

Tall Boy cants his head towards the empty booth in the back, and Jughead follows without looking back.

 

“Social call?” Jughead wonders, taking a seat opposite Fun Size and Tall Boy. He makes sure to take the aisle, so he can return to the core four table without making Sweet Pea move.

 

“Not exactly,” Tall Boy admits. “But, we did want to check in, see how things are going. How’s the --?” He gestures at Jughead’s torso.

 

“Peachy.” Jughead thinks about raising his shirt to show them the scar but thinks better of it. “Thanks for the workman’s comp by the way.” The Serpents have been paying the rental space on the trailer since the incident, either for him or his dad, he still doesn’t know.

 

“Yeah, we feel bad about that one,” Sweet Pea admits. Sweets still feels some gratitude towards Jughead for his help getting him out from under Penny Peabody. After his older brother was picked up for possession of an unregistered weapon, Sweet Pea consulted Penny for some legal help, not knowing her ‘pro bono’ advice came with strings attached. Even Fun Size was roped into her schemes when he offered to help Sweet Pea with some delivery work for the snake charmer.

 

“But, we gave you time to recover,” Tall Boy argues. “And we’re here because this involves you, in more ways than one.”

 

“How so?”

 

“You remember Mustang?”

 

Of course, Jug remembers Mustang, one of four people who knows what really happened the night of Jason Blossom’s murder. He shrugs sure.

 

“Well, he’s AWOL, and he took a bunch of cash with him. We think he’s in bed with the police, and we have some intel he was the snitch who planted the gun in FP’s trailer.” This is bad, for Jughead, for his father, for the rest of the Serpents. “Come on, snake handler, work your magic. Don’t you find people?” Tall Boy gestures at Betty behind Jughead. Though still protected under the umbrella of the school newspaper, too many people are privy to their amateur private investigator business, if they can call it that. Jughead had no plans to be the Serpents’ new snake handler, but it happened anyway. “You go to school with his daughter, Mia,” Tall Boy reminds Jug, shifting his attention back towards Betty. “You and your little blonde side piece. Get her to help you play detective.”

 

Jughead clenches his jaw to stop himself from snapping at Tall Boy, that he doesn’t get to talk about Betty like that, tells himself to use his words instead of his fists. Tall Boy has a temper rivaling his own, and the taller man wouldn’t have a single qualm about laying Jughead out in Pop’s diner. Given Pop’s strict no-fighting policy, Mr. Tate would be forced to banish Jughead for good, even if he was the one who got his ass handed to him. “I can do it myself,” Jughead bites back. “Leave her out of it.”

 

“Good deal.” Tall Boy gives him a smug look like he won. He did. “Keep in touch, Jones.”

 

Jughead returns to the core four booth and attempts to seamlessly slip back into the conversation, but everyone stares at him expecting an explanation. Archie and Veronica have no clue what he does for the Serpents. Archie seems worried but too afraid to ask. Since the night of the riot, things have been admittedly ambiguous between Jughead and the Serpents, and he knows Archie was hoping Jug was done with them. Veronica, on the other hand, looks outright skeptical and suspicious and judgmental, all things that make Jughead think of Alice Cooper, make him less likely to offer an ounce of honesty in her direction. “At ease, gentlemen,” he says, trying for levity.

 

Betty grabs his arm and slings it back along her shoulders, assuring him she guarded his fries with her life. He can count if he doubts her, she says, as if he knows how many fries should be on his plate. He does. He smiles and presses his lips to her temple in thanks, thankful both for protecting his food and for letting it go, at least until later. Ultimately, no one asks what Tall Boy wanted.

 

_It’s just another favor, Jones_ , Jughead reasons with himself, watching Tall Boy and the younger Serpents slink out of Pop’s without ordering. Another tally in Jug’s corner to be used later on down the road. Betty leans into him, her arm crossing his torso to hug him a little closer. _But, you still got shot last time, dumbass_. So who really repaid the favor? “So, Secret Santa?”

 

* * *

 

 

**December 2016**

**Betty**

**Poison by Rocket Juice and the Moon**

 

Things are bad again. She cannot keep her thoughts straight. His demands remain in sharp relief to block everything else out, any rational thought, any reasonable solution. He calls her once a day for a progress report on his next target, the Sugar Man, the main vein for jingle jangle in the greater Riverdale area. She attempts to placate him with minor players, peripheral distributors, but he only wants the supplier, the source. He will not settle for less and the longer she idles, the more she stalls, the worse his threats become, more imminent, the thread of his control fraying around her inability to sate him.

 

All her phone calls to Polly have gone straight to voicemail. The emails bounce back. She argues maybe the Farm doesn’t have internet, but another part of her whispers that Polly doesn’t want anything to do with her or this town. No one wants anything to do with her.

 

She hides in the _Blue and Gold_ at lunch and after school. She dodges calls from Kevin and Veronica, fearful any friendly interactions with them will prompt the Black Hood to add a few names to his blacklist. She has already forfeited the one person who keeps things clear, the only one that can cut through the Gordian knot of her mind. He gives her space she never wanted to ask for, gives her so much space he stops showing up to class, lunch, their independent study period. He gives up his column with the _Blue and Gold_. He does exactly what she asked him to, and she still manages to resent it. Only a little, she excuses, allaying her concerns by reminding herself it is only temporary. After this is done, she can get them back on track. She repeats this to herself every time the next step feels impossible.

 

Her reprieve comes in an unlikely form. Cheryl Blossom. After Sheriff Keller informed Betty the Sugar Man had been the late Clifford Blossom but that he had no leads on the identity of the current supplier of jingle jangle, Betty went to Cheryl for information. And, predictably, Cheryl rebuffed her questions, threw shade to get Betty to leave. Betty left her with just as cutting a remark, pulling no punches. “Cheryl, the only decent thing about you was your relationship with your brother, and now you don’t even have that.”

 

Two days later, Betty was surprised to find Cheryl waiting for her in the _Blue and Gold_ office. When Cheryl confessed she found the new Sugar Man, Betty nearly asked Jughead to grab her recorder but then remembered. She found the recorder herself in one of the drawers at her work desk, right across from his, where he wrote and she edited. Past tense.

 

“I’m not giving this information freely,” Cheryl starts.

 

“Of course.” Betty didn’t expect anything less. “What do you want?”

 

“I know Polly is due soon.”

 

Betty doesn’t know the exact due date but it has to be within the next month or so. It has come up in a few of her return-to-sender emails.

 

“Please, just let me be a part of their lives, the twins,” Cheryl pleads and the sentiment seems genuine. “Please, Betty. They’re all I have left of him. Can you imagine if it was the other way around?”

 

She can, but it isn’t her decision. Cheryl doesn’t need to know that, though.

 

Betty doesn’t think about the consequences of walking back on her deal with Cheryl Blossom, hoping she can find the Black Hood and hand him over to the police before Cheryl comes back around to collect on her debt, hoping by then Polly will have come back and Betty can make good with the last surviving Blossom heir. The name of the Sugar Man is in her hands. Her deed is done, and she feels a few tangles in her head come undone, tension spots loosening in her shoulders.

 

And then she does something stupid. She tries to get her own leverage over the Hood, a short-sighted power play. His rage is palpable over the phone, the receiver vibrating with it, but Betty feels safe and powerful if only for a moment. The Sugar Man is behind bars where he belongs with enough evidence to put him away for a good long time. It should satisfy the Hood. She attempts to explain this, but he only leaves her with another threat, a simple but effective one, open-ended with intent. _You’ll regret this, Betty_. The line goes dead.

 

Betty scrambles for a comforting thought, staring at her reflection in the dark screen and watching it waver with the quivers down her spine ending in her hands. She wants to call Jughead, order him to run away, tell him she never wants to see him, to never show his face in Riverdale again. What she really wants to hear is the morbid, off-color joke he would make about all of this, feel his sardonic smile disarm and soften her fears, feel the way she felt that night in Greendale when she summoned the courage to kiss him, that they could survive, surmount anything if they were together – drug lords and murderers and bullies and the police and their piss-poor excuses for parents. She senses none of that bravery inside her now. There would be nothing to overcome if Jughead was dead.

 

* * *

 

 

Nothing she does makes a difference. There is a body in the holding cell at the Sheriff’s station. Her demon personified can walk through walls now. That is what her mother prints on the front page of the Register the following day. Half the town is outraged and calling for Sheriff Keller’s badge while the other half contends the drug pusher had it coming, that the Black Hood is doing them all a favor by taking the law into his own hands. Betty reads these conflicting sentiments in the letters to the editor and blanches.

It is a clear day, sterile blue sky and the world is frozen below. Betty appreciates winter, the cold. It makes everything feel still, cleaner somehow. Time seems to move slower. She concentrates on this now, the bare branches outside her window, disappears inside the expanse of clear focused blue like Jughead’s eyes when they are working on the _Blue and Gold_ , not storm weathered like the last time she saw him.

 

He is a heavy sleeper, when he sleeps. She would play this game. She did it when they were small, too, when he would fall asleep in strange places, in the park, the treehouse, watching a movie, folded over his desk in the _Blue and Gold_. She would draw constellations with the moles on his face using her fingertips until he woke up. It was calming for her, finding real and imagined ones in the array of beauty marks on his cheeks, his jawline slack with sleep, the ones hidden on his neck and behind his ear.

 

Him waking without opening his eyes, a little miffed, ‘Why are you touching my face?’

 

‘You’re going to be late for your favorite period?’

 

‘Lunch?’

 

‘Second favorite.’

 

‘I’m bored of Shakespeare.’

 

‘Wake up, Juggie.’

 

He would push it, though, burying his face deeper into his arms while she connected the dots on his neck. ‘Orion’s Belt. Little Dipper. Scorpion tail.’

 

His mumble from the nest of his arms, ‘You’re just finding new names for the same things.’

 

When she wakes from her daydream, the Register is a pile of shreds in her lap, dusting her socked feet. Her phone rings on the vanity, and her breath hitches on the first couple notes until she realizes it isn’t the Chordettes. She lets it go to voicemail, starting to gather the eviscerated newspaper in her lap. It rings again. She drops handfuls of newspaper in her trash bin before grabbing the phone off the vanity top, seeing Veronica’s sly fox face lighting up the screen. It is her third call. Betty missed the first during her daydream.

 

“Finally! My god, B, you’ve been a hard woman to pin down the last few days,” Veronica exclaims over the receiver as soon as Betty presses it to her ear. “So on a scale of one to ten, one being the tail-end of probation and ten being all out of appeals, how grounded are you?” That was Betty’s excuse for the radio silence, that Alice laid down the hard end of the law when Betty missed curfew one too many times, and with the Black Hood still stalking the streets of Riverdale, the punishment had been most severe and purposefully vague for Betty’s friends.

 

Betty decides to leave it open-ended. “Why? What’s going on?”

 

“Are you grounded or not?”

 

“Let’s just say I might be able to get out on a temporary furlough,” Betty hints. With the heat from the Black Hood, her mother and father have had many late nights at the Register lately, but Veronica doesn’t need to know that.

 

Veronica cheers over the phone and Betty pulls the receiver away until she settles down. “Well, then I’m in luck, girl. I’m throwing a party this weekend, and you are not allowed to say no.”

 

Betty wants to ask Veronica whether it is the best idea to have a party when the Black Hood is still at large. And just murdered someone inside the sheriff’s station. With a half dozen deputies in the area. But then Betty also needs an excuse to talk Veronica into helping her on that front. It is too convenient by half that the Hood could just waltz into the sheriff’s station and shoot the Sugar Man in cold blood with not a single deputy alerted, like a ghost. She needs to commission Veronica’s help now that her usual sleuthing partner is AWOL. Betty considered recruiting Archie, but she worried Archie might lend too heavy a hand to the investigation. Veronica is finessed, tactful, knows when to speak and when to listen when vital information is on the line – something Jughead still has trouble with, Betty admits.

 

“And please invite your beau, the elusive Mr. Poe, if he agrees to play nice.” Betty never admitted to dating Jughead, and she isn’t sure what they had could really count as dating. It barely lasted two weeks, and everything that came before the night they escaped the Greendale police probably doesn’t apply. But, while Veronica never got concrete confirmation, she assumed there was something between the two of them and figured they would come out publicly as a couple eventually. Betty wonders if Veronica secretly hopes tonight will be that night.

 

She decides to lie. “I don’t know, V. He has that new weekend job with Mr. Andrews. It’s an early start. I don’t think he will be up for it.” Something she found out from Archie, her second-rate source of information on Jughead’s comings and goings. Even Archie is having trouble keeping tabs on Jughead and they live together. “But, I’ll ask.”

 

“So you admit he is your beau?”

 

Shit. The former prep school queen is way too conniving for her own good. “No, Veronica, I’m just playing along.” Her lackluster bluff doesn’t blow past Veronica like it would Archie. “You know he hates parties, so please don’t expect him to be there.” Because he won’t be.  

 

“Excuses, excuses, my dear,” Veronica sing-songs. “Fine, keep your cards close to your chest. But you will be at this party. Honestly, I kind of need you there.”

 

Betty looks at the shredded newspaper on her carpet floor. Maybe she needs to be there, too. She asks Veronica if she can come early for clothes and makeup.

 

“I’m so glad you brought that up! Yes, yes, yes, B. We’ll pre-game a little, too, for nerves of course. See you at six Saturday evening?”

 

“Yes, V, and gossip.” Veronica will like that. It sounds like her friend needs a distraction, too.

 

* * *

 

 

Her mother is in the middle of a dentist’s appointment, so her father has to come to pick her up from Sheriff Keller’s house. He acts stern and disbelieving in front of the sheriff, but in the car, he softens considerably, turning to Betty and explaining, "Honestly, Betty, I’m disappointed you weren’t more careful. You should know Keller likes to come home for lunch most days.”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“Speaking of lunch, I still have some time left before I have to be back at the Register. How about we pick something up from Pop’s to go, and I can get you back before your lunch period ends? How does that sound?”

 

“Okay,” she tests, wondering if it is a trick. “That sounds great, dad.”

 

He reaches across the console and squeezes her upper arm affectionately. “We haven’t gotten to spend much time together in a while, have we?” No, she thinks. Not since he admitted trying to force Polly to have an abortion and exiling her to the Sisters when she refused. Or the fact he did the same thing to her mother when they were in high school. She has wanted to ask why, and he has been over for dinner a few times, but it isn’t exactly the kind of conversation you start over a family meal. “Maybe we can catch up. You can tell me how school is going? How is the _Blue and Gold_?”

 

The drive over to Pop’s is short, and they take a booth by the door. Her dad lets Pop know they will be taking their order to go. Mr. Tate smiles and tells Hal they should catch up some time to talk about the chances for the Bulldogs basketball team this coming season. Betty forgets her father was All-American and took state as a point guard in high school. Pop Tate played point guard as well during his time. There is a picture of the diner owner, fresher-faced and much leaner, in the trophy case at the school.

 

While Pop and Hal reminisce about their glory days, Betty spies a familiar beanie peeking up over a booth on the opposite side of the diner. He faces away from Betty and her father. He must be taking advantage of open lunch, too, even if it isn’t extended to sophomores. Or he is skipping school again. There are two others in the booth with him, but she can only see one of them clearly, the tall one with the greasy hair and leather jacket. She recognizes him as one of the Serpents from Retro Night. She can only see the top of the other’s head, brown hair and the beginnings of a fade to pink, a girl from the higher tones as she jostles the taller one with a punch to the shoulder and a jibe.

 

“Are you still seeing him?” Her father has finished putting in their orders, and Pop has returned to the kitchen to put them in. Hal must have glanced behind him and seen the telltale knit hat. No one else wears a hat like that in Riverdale. No one wears a hat like that anywhere, Betty thinks.

 

“No, dad.”

 

“You broke up,” he concludes.

 

“Something like that,” she offers lukewarmly, sliding her ice water towards her. “It feels weird you rewarding me for breaking into the sheriff’s house,” she says, changing the subject.

 

Hal seems to consider it, and she wonders if a punishment is around the corner. A real grounding that might help justify her self-imposed isolation from the past week. Her father settles on, “You were right to be suspicious.” Pop strides by with his Coke, extra ice and no straw. Her father always said straws were for suckers. When Pop leaves to take another order, her father leans towards her conspiratorially. “That man is incompetent. You’re probably closer to finding the Hood than he is. Your mother and I call him Sheriff Clueless behind his back.”

 

She remembers Jughead calling him Sheriff Useless, hears him laugh at his booth from across the diner. She cannot remember the last time she heard him laugh like that.

 

Her father sighs when he sees her wilt from the laughter behind him. “There are better boys out there for you, Betty,” her father assures her. “Ones who don’t skip school to hang out with miscreants and criminals.” She hears the undertones of her mother in his words.

 

“Aren’t I a criminal, too?”

 

“What you did was a selfless act of vigilantism, Betty,” her father rationalizes, sipping his Coke. “How will we get to the truth otherwise.”

 

Betty looks behind her father and catches Jughead’s eyes, his chin balanced on his elbow along the top of the booth, his expression unreadable. It is the first eye contact they have had in a week. She forces herself not to blink so maybe the tears will dry up before they can fall, and then Jughead turns back around in the booth when the short girl snaps at him. Betty feels her father’s hand covering her own, reaching across the space. She meets his meadow green eyes with her own, inquisitive but gentle when he says, “I’m proud of you, Betty.”

 

* * *

 

 

Her heart is not in it. The pre-gaming gossip session with Veronica left her more drained than enthused for the remainder of the night. Her friends filter into the Lodge’s Pembrooke penthouse, more acquaintances than friends, some more enemies than familiar acquaintances. She feels overstimulated from anxiety, the constant racing of her thoughts, Veronica’s fustian energy, and exhaustion follows close behind, edging at the periphery of each tension point, waiting for her to break. Kevin kisses both her cheeks but abandons her to sit between Josie and Cheryl when he realizes she might not have a full tank for the night’s festivities. She feels more alone, more alone without someone to whisper cheeky comments to throughout the night.

 

Veronica plies her with a vodka tonic, whispers to Betty, “For the nerves.” Betty takes a sip around the lime and crushed ice, more vodka than tonic.

 

By the bar, there is a boy shooting it with Reggie and Archie. His blazer looks well-fitted, and his posture reminds her of professional dancers, stiff and practiced, misplaced against his smug and drawling speech. During their pre-game, Veronica mentioned a former friend from New York was visiting, that his parents were important investors for Lodge industries, something about Veronica’s mother trying to revive their family business since the vultures have mostly abandoned the bones. Betty hears Jughead mutter in her ear how it looks like the kid is balanced on a pole up his ass. She thinks about how she would laugh but place a chastising hand on his thigh while he mimes a puppet with his free arm, his other slung across her shoulders. She turns with a cutting rebuttal, but he isn’t there. It is only Veronica.

 

“What was his name again?” Betty asks Veronica after she accepts the drink.

 

Veronica glances at the three boys talking in the corner, and Betty senses some mistrust in her expression. “Nick St. Claire.”

 

Nick’s head tilts mid-sentence like he heard her. “My ears are burning,” he announces, swiping his drink off the bar top and turning towards Betty and Veronica.

 

Betty brings her tumbler to her lips to occupy her mouth, and Veronica stands up, placing her body between Betty and Nick. Somehow intentionally, Betty thinks. “You are the guest of honor, Nicky. I’m making sure everyone knows it.”

 

Nick waltzes towards Veronica and clinks his glass with hers. “While I appreciate the modest venue and the hospitable crowd, Ronnie,” he starts, gesturing his tumbler around the room. “How about we forget the teetotaling for a night and move onto something with a little more kick.” He slips his hand inside his blazer, shuffling through the inner pocket and pulling out a handful of pixie sticks.

 

Betty sips her drink as Nick proffers the drugs around the room. Veronica’s eyes shift as she weighs pros and cons, glancing at Archie’s stubborn disinclination. Betty gets it. Veronica’s family’s company is on the line, her father’s legacy. “I, in fact, wouldn’t mind a little sugar to spice up this party,” she concludes. At Archie’s clear distaste, she argues, “What? Every other night it’s burgers and milkshakes. Can’t we just cut loose and pretend we’re normal, for once?” Veronica turns to Betty who declined on the first roundabout the room. “Betty?”

 

Normal, Betty thinks. This is supposed to be normal, she rationalizes, studying the red and white stripes curling around the pixie stick in Nick St. Claire’s hand. It reminds her of one of her childhood toys, a classic Jack-in-the-box whose shirt had red and white stripes just like the straw in Nick’s hand. “You know what? I changed my mind,” she decides, standing to join Veronica.

 

She takes the straw from Nick, and Archie looks like he might intervene. Betty fiddles with the straw and regards the redhead. She reasons with her oldest friend’s misgivings, “I just want to feel a little bit of good for a while, Arch.”

 

“Oh sweetheart, you’ll feel more than a little good,” Nick snides from the side gallery. Betty wishes he would shut up for a moment, just five minutes.

 

Veronica and Betty twist the paper top off at the same time and hook their elbows around one another’s, a couple’s toast, tipping the straws into their mouths. _Pop goes the weasel, Betty._ She thinks they must mix sugar in with the powder to mask the acrid taste of the drugs, make it more palatable for the young. She washes it down with the last swig of vodka tonic, crumples up the paper stick and drops it into the bottom of her glass.

 

Her eyes find the grandfather clock in the corner, starting the countdown as the drugs make the rounds to her peers in the Lodge salon. The minutes slog by as everyone waits for something to happen. Reggie and Nick seem unbothered, sharing a drink at the bar and chatting quietly while they wait patiently for the drugs to kick in. After fifteen minutes, Kevin starts to complain emphatically that maybe the drugs are bust, and then Josie’s eyes get wide and glassy and she starts smiling. The smile is infectious. It hits the rest of the Pussycats, lands on Kevin, devolves into giggles when it reaches Veronica, and then Betty feels a veil lifted from her senses, a veil she didn’t know existed, and a smile splits her face, too, as the world bleeds into hyperactive technicolor.  

 

Later on in the night, Archie side swipes Betty on her way to the restroom. Betty feels strung out and thirsty, forcing herself not to grind her teeth. Archie steadies her with his hands on her upper arms, and she sinks into the touch, feeling affection-starved. “This isn’t you, Betty.”

 

Without thinking, she leans forward, her forehead coming to rest against his chest with a sigh. He is so warm, runs hot like a dog. “It isn’t,” she agrees. “But I want it to be. I want to be someone else, Archie.”

 

“Why would you want to be someone else?”

 

Betty looks up at him, his pupils normal sized, cheeks a little flushed from the couple drinks he allowed himself, but so much himself with no desire to be anyone else. “Do you know where he is tonight?”

 

“Who? Jug?”

 

“I screwed up, Archie,” she confesses, her head tipping forward again, burrowing into his chest. “I hurt him. I had to. He made me.”

 

Archie stands her upright, and her head lolls back. She gazes up at the ceiling as his barrage of questions washes over her. “Hurt who? Who made you? Betty, what are you talking about?”

 

“Do you think I’m precious, Arch?”

 

“You’re high,” he reasons because she makes no sense. Not to him. Not ever, she thinks.  

 

“Duh.” Betty giggles but her eyes are damp. “I’m precious but I’m dangerous, too. I’m worse. I’ve coerced and stolen and broken into places I shouldn't have. I almost drowned Chuck Clayton.” She levels her gaze with Archie. “I wanted to.” Something clicks in her mind as Archie’s expression darkens, remembering Chuck, the playbook, the rumors about what Chuck did to Betty, about what Betty did to Chuck, and the slashing of the Riverdale Bulldog’s starting lineup. “This is me, Archie. Your pink perfection is only an illusion.” Betty shrugs out of Archie’s hold, leaves him at a loss for words.

 

She locks herself in the bathroom, drinks directly from the tap, checks her lipstick in the mirror. The green of her irises is nothing but a tight circle around each pupil blown wide. She pulls her phone from her back pocket, no new messages, no missed calls, not even from _him_. She opens the messaging app, scrolls to her last text chain with Jughead. The last message is dated two weeks ago. _I’m right around the corner, Juliet._ It didn’t occur to her then. Even he thought, maybe only subconsciously, they were a tragedy in the making, that there would be no fairytale ending.

 

This is the worst timing, she knows. In the back of her head, in the more rational section of her brain, she screams at herself to put the phone away, drop it in the toilet if she has to. Her heart twists violently in her chest watching the blinking cursor in the blank text box. If he were looking at the same chain, he would see the promising ellipsis. Her fingers stumble over the screen, relying on autocorrect to get the message right. _Time out?_  She presses the send button before she can second guess herself, quickly thumbing the home button as her heart races, feeling sick to her stomach. She stuffs her phone back into her pocket, checks the mirror one last time, forces herself to forget the number one party faux pas.

 

On her return from the restroom, Betty gets cornered by Cheryl Blossom, escaping one albatross only to encounter another. “Betty,” she exclaims, her hands finding Betty’s and swinging them back and forth like they are two little girls about to play hopscotch. “Have you talked to Polly yet? I’ve been wanting to ask for days, but it feels like you’re avoiding me. Are you avoiding me?” Under the influence of J.J., Cheryl is more open, unfiltered, but more empathetic.

 

Betty doesn’t lie well on a good day. With synthetic compassion racing through her veins, lying becomes even more impossible. She admits that Polly lives at the Farm now, but she has been trying. “I promise, Cheryl, I’m really trying.” She tries to convey her sincerity, but underneath the drugs, the genuine parts of her, the reality is she may not be able to follow through. She cannot force her sister to let Cheryl into the twins’ lives. Betty can’t even convince Polly to let her little sister into her life, never mind a Blossom.

 

Cheryl smiles, wide and watery. “I know. You always do. You never do things halfway, do you, Betty Cooper?”

 

Betty hasn’t figured out whether that is a virtue or a fault. “Neither do you, Cheryl Blossom.”

 

The girls watch as Archie bails the party. Veronica pries herself away from Nick to run after him like something straight out of a soap opera. Even Cheryl whispers conspiratorially and excitedly to Betty, “Cue the melodrama.” Betty feels the urge to follow them. Even high on non-prescription sympathy, Cheryl thrives on the drama. Betty feels it in her grip, the gleam in her eyes as they watch Veronica slip out of the apartment. “For the record,” Cheryl notes, drawing Betty’s attention back. “I never thought you and Archie would make a good couple.”

 

As Cheryl abandons her for the nest of Pussycats curled up on the sectional, Betty reminds herself that ecstasy is false empathy. Her phone dings from her back pocket. _How long?_

 

* * *

 

 

**December 2017**

**Jughead**

**Tangled Up In Plaid by Queens of the Stone Age**

 

“How’s life, Mia?”

 

The freshman shrugs but doesn’t look up from her notebook. “Dad’s MIA again.” She scribbles away notes from her personal finance textbook. Southside kids never have a leg up in the math department, Jughead thinks.

 

“Yeah, I know how that goes,” Jughead concurs with some real sympathy. “Is it okay living with your aunt?” At least she has other relatives to fall back on. Both Jughead’s parents were only children, maybe mercifully knowing FP’s dad was a right shit. His grandparents on his father’s side have been dead or missing for the last decade. As far as he knows, his mother and Jellybean still live in Toledo with his grandma. This reminds him to phone Jellybean for their monthly call, a new routine they have kept since he got out of the hospital.

 

Mia’s pencil stops scratching, and she finally looks at Jughead with her father’s electric blue eyes, less rabid, gentler but sadder. “Yeah,” she admits. Considering, when he was younger, Jughead saw Mustang’s trailer on a few occasions when FP was dragging him around on ‘errands’, it is probably a better living situation for Mia. “She smokes less and never inside, but she doesn’t have a car, so I have to take the bus. Dad always took me.”

 

“What about classes? I took personal finance. I could give you my notes.” Jughead does well in a few academic areas, literature, pop culture (if that counts), weirdly chemistry, but almost nothing else. He got an A in the course, though, his only above average grade in math, but his notes were chicken scratch and he honestly cannot remember where he put them, if he even still has them. Maybe Betty’s would be better, neat and thorough where Jughead relies too heavily on common sense instead of memory. At her mother’s behest, Betty took two math classes freshman year, personal finance as an elective. Betty’s notes would be the best bet. He knows she keeps all of them in labeled and filed boxes in the Cooper attic.

 

Mia brightens a little. “You’d do that? You know, I was really excited when my dad got me rezoned for Riverdale High, but I had no idea how behind I’d feel. Does that ever go away?”

 

“If you work at it,” he decides, a tidbit of banal Hallmark advice. “So, when was the last time you saw your dad?” _Because this isn’t just a social call, Jones_.

 

She taps her pencil eraser against her notebook, snappy thumps against the paper that drives him a little crazy waiting for her answer. “I don’t know, maybe a week ago,” she thinks. “It’s almost Christmas break. He’s never missed Christmas.” Isn’t she lucky? But Jughead would rather not play who has the shittiest father on the Southside, even if it is just inside his head. The bar is set so low on that front anyway. Missing Christmas is child’s play to some of the childhood battle scars, the cigarette burns, and black eyes blamed on doorknobs, Jughead has seen on some of the kids in Sunnyside. With Mustang’s temperament, Jughead can only imagine the other side of the story, but observing the level of concern on Mia’s face, he double takes on his judgments.

 

“You don’t know how to get in contact with him?”

 

Mia shakes her head, but at that moment her cell phone buzzes on the tabletop. The librarian shushes them from her desk, and Jughead cants his body away from her to subtly check the screen on Mia’s phone, who gasps with something like delight. She almost looks like she might start crying. “Oh my god, it’s my dad.” Jughead has the devil’s luck sometimes when he honestly would prefer not to.

 

* * *

 

 

While at school, he hides things here in the _Blue and Gold_ that he cannot put in his locker or keep in his book bag. During the harrowing days of the Hood and rumors about Jug’s Serpent contacts, he was on the shit-end of too many wrongful search and seizures by Weatherbee and his hall monitors that now Jug knows better. No one would think to search Betty Cooper’s desk in the school newspaper office, and Betty is the only one who knows he keeps it concealed behind her supply drawer, behind her pens and general office sundries. It is just in case of emergency, he tells himself, for when he walks home from school, when he feels most vulnerable. He reminds himself that he still needs to pick up something worse from the trailer for the afternoon ahead.

 

When he strolls into the _Blue and Gold_ office, Betty sits at her desk with a red pen and his latest draft for the next issue. The paper already bleeds in her hands as her teeth worry the end of the pen. “You’re falling back into old habits,” she remarks, underlining a passage and leaving a friendly reminder in the margins to reword.

 

“Old habits?” He balances on the edge of her desk, his butt on the drawer behind which his switchblade is stashed. She shows him the first page, and he sees red x-marks over half a dozen commas and bolder strikes to eliminate three semicolons. “That’s why I keep you around,” he reasons, unperturbed by her edits. While at first, he bartered for his semicolons and generous use of metaphor, now he generally trusts her judgment where the _Blue and Gold_ is concerned. She isn’t nearly as much of a hard-ass when he lets her read his fiction because she knows the rules of journalistic pieces do not apply to fictional prose. “You keep me honest.”

 

She smiles and puts his draft down, caps the pen. “Is that the only reason you keep me around?” She looks up at him from under her eyelashes, the studious green of her irises that always grounds him on the spot.

 

He tilts his head as he considers it, her myriad merits. “I can think of a few other benefits of your company, Ms. Cooper.”

 

She chuckles and twiddles with the pens on her desk. “I thought you had something to do after school?”

 

“Yeah, I have a meeting. I just came by to --.” He pauses and stands up to pull her pen drawer open, pulls the drawer all the way out and sets it on top of the desk. She watches him bend and reach to the back of the slot, retrieving the switchblade from his hiding place. He brandishes it at her, closed, to prove a point and slips it into his back pocket.

 

“Right,” she says, folding her arms. “Your second security blanket.”

 

“We all have things to help us sleep at night,” he contends, nodding at her backpack where he knows she keeps the taser in the front pocket.

 

“So, your meeting?” He can tell she wants to ask who with, where, when, if she can tag along. He skipped lunch to chat with Mia, missing out on Betty’s homemade chocolate chip cookies, wonders if she saved him one. She promised to leave him a few after she’d allocated the rest for the Vixens charity bake sale. “Fact-finding for an article or Serpent business?”

 

“Daddy-dearest business,” he decides with a little scoff, leaving it there. Elaborate further and Betty will tail him while he tails Mia, and then it will be a convoluted game of spying stalking tag that, might, will end with someone getting hurt – probably Jughead, likely Betty, worse Mia. “Did you save me a cookie?”

 

“Of course,” she says with a private smile, reaching into her bag for the Tupperware container. “I don’t want to get on the bad side of my favorite cookie monster.”

 

He mimics the fuzzy blue Muppet, “Me love Betty’s cookies.” She rolls her eyes affectionately, handing him the plastic tub while he groans his _thank you_. He holds the Tupperware eye-level to inspect the goods, the sides fogged with condensation implying the cookies are fresh and better soft, moist, counts two tidy stacks of five palm-sized cookies each. He pops the top off and takes a large bite from one, gives her a pleased nod as he chews thoughtfully. “More than adequate.” He laughs and chokes on the cookie when she punches him on the thigh. He swallows loudly, gooey chocolatey sweet sticking inside his throat. “Okay, life-affirming. Better?”

 

“Aren’t you going to be late for your ‘meeting’?”

 

He stuffs the other half of the cookie in his mouth and checks the time on the wall clock above the door. From eavesdropping on her conversation earlier in the library, Mia will take the four o’clock bus to meet her dad in some diner between Centerville and Riverdale. Her bus leaves in forty-five minutes. He looked up the stop after their lunchtime talk.

 

“I mean, I have some time,” he says suggestively, walking his fingers across the desk edge towards her forearm, the pads of his fingers brushing against the shell pink wool. “For a very appreciative thank you, you know, for your cookies. A very satisfying tit for tat.” His fingers slip underneath her sleeve, stroking the top of her wrist. “Might help take the edge off.” From the bleeding state of his draft, she must be a little nerve-wracked about the bake sale, the first game of the basketball season, Cheryl’s new choreography, something else. Maybe this meeting he won’t discuss. At least not until he gets to the heart of why Mustang sold them out. Potentially. He can only imagine the onslaught of questions she wants to ask that he cannot, will not answer, the biggest one being _why is it so important that **he** find Mustang?_

Betty sighs and moves her arm away, observing him deflate from the loss of contact. “Unlucky for me I have that Vixen bake sale, remember? To raise money for the travel fund. I have to help set up before the game tonight.” He knows this. When he came to pick up the switchblade, he was hoping she would be there instead of here in the _Blue and Gold_ office.

 

“Oh darn,” Jughead mocks. “Am I missing the first game of the season? And I was so looking forward to watching Archie chase another ball around a room.”

 

“That’s your best friend, Mr. Jughead Jones, not a Labrador,” she chides with some bite.

 

“He’ll be my best friend again when he moves that fucking punching bag to the garage,” Jughead argues, checking the time again. He has a half hour before he has to be on his bike to make it for Mia’s bus. His stomach grumbles loudly.

 

Betty raises her eyebrows at him and stifles a laugh. “You gonna get that?”

 

He stuffs another cookie in his mouth. Maybe he has time to stop at Pop’s before the four o’clock bus to Centerville. At this rate, he’ll demolish the remainder of the cookies Betty spared him, and he wants to save them for after, mostly because he knows how he will feel after he confronts Mustang. He still isn’t sure he will approach the rogue Serpent. This is supposed to be a find and report mission, but he can imagine what Tall Boy has planned for Mustang. Something that involves a direct line of questioning immediately followed by brass knuckles, with or without answers. Somewhere in Mustang’s grim future might be a car battery with his name on it.

 

Despite the two cookies, his stomach groans again. He leans down to give Betty a quick peck on the cheek. “I’m sorry, but I gotta go get something to eat, like two hours ago.” He gestures at the cookies. “Save these for later. I’ll text you.” He replaces the plastic top on the Tupperware as she reaches up and uses her thumb to swipe his lower lip of a smudge of melted chocolate. He watches her place the tip of her thumb between her lips and pulls it away clean. “I love you.”

 

* * *

 

 

In the lot of the diner on rural route 18, parked between a Ford Explorer and an old Chevy pickup, Jughead devours his cheeseburger cold, watching the patrons through the windows of the Chevy. He spots Mia take a seat across from her father, whose permanently enraged gaze scans the parking lot for tails. Hence why Jug set up shop between two large vehicles, safely observing the exchange from behind the filmy Chevy windows. Jughead snorts when Mustang’s eyes pass right over him, seeing two empty seats in the Chevy and nothing else.

 

He chews and thinks the burger traveled pretty well in his seat compartment. The bun isn’t even soggy. He wants to compliment Pop on it later but checks his thoughts when Mustang reaches across the table for his daughter’s hands and she stuffs them into her lap. She says something cutting, that makes the man flinch, and Jughead tries to remember if he ever saw the normally hard-nosed Mustang unsquare from a fight. Jughead cannot see Mia’s face, but she has Mustang’s eyes, electric blue but never constantly jonesing for a brawl like her father. Maybe she has the capacity, though, if Mustang’s reaction to her commentary is anything to go by. She is only a freshman, but Toni would argue she is still Southside. That means something.

 

Then, Mia starts yelling, the conversation going from zero to sixty in a blink. Soft-spoken in the library, serious about her grades, and now screaming at her dad in a public dive a few miles outside Centerville. Jughead feels some tug of familiarity in his chest, mulls a bite of cold cheeseburger on the thought that his mold is set. Maybe Mia’s on the cusp of it, too.

 

Jughead thinks about Mustang negotiating Mia’s rezoning for Riverdale High, devolving into base threats until he gets the administration’s stamp of approval with her glowing grades from junior high. The school board must have thought, _smart, for a Southsider_ , with not a little derision. He thinks about Mustang driving Mia to school each weekday morning, ignoring his hangover or missing molar from the previous night’s melee at the Wyrm, wishing his daughter a good day at school even when he smells like a barroom floor. Mustang showing up for every Christmas with a gift wrapped in the funny papers like Mia is still five years old, dragging a Charlie Brown tree into his sister’s tiny living room. On top of all that, Mustang has at least come up to par with the best of the Southside fathers by lasting longer than Mia’s mother on the parenting front. In such contrast to the man who starts the nightly fight at the Wyrm, Mustang takes his fatherly duties seriously, despite Tall Boy’s rumors about being a snitch. Mustang doesn’t want Mia to end up a shit-bird like him thinking her parents never loved her, never cared, never wanted the best for her or at least better. He makes a conscious effort to prevent it, even calling his daughter out here to the middle of nowhere by bus to explain himself, even if it makes him vulnerable.

 

Mustang knocks over his glass when he gestures across the table between the two of them. It must send cold water dumping on Mia’s lap because she stands up and throws her napkin at her father before heading off towards the restroom.

 

Jughead crumples the greasy takeout bag and tracks Mustang’s next movements – troubling the waitress for a pen and a blank receipt, scribbles a note with his left-hand like Mia, tosses some crumpled bills on the table, and then makes a hurried dash for the door just as Mia comes out of the bathroom. Jug sets his helmet on his head when Mustang slings a leg across his motorcycle, revs the engine, speeds out of the lot sans a helmet. Jughead, his helmet still unbuckled, has to scramble to turn the keys in the ignition and peel out after the man. Neither of them looks back at Mia standing in the window, watching them leave.

 

Jughead follows Mustang to the Last Resort Hostel in Centerville, feels the ache of nostalgia gazing up at that stuttering neon sign. He manages a cowering shrug at the clerk behind the bulletproof glass who asks him what kind of room he wants and how many days. He slides the girl a twenty, leans close to the glass while she backs away, and he asks where Mustang is holed up. The clerk looks at him trying to place his face, and Jug wonders if she recognizes him from the last time when he came with Betty, her arm looped across his middle and her hand sliding across his shoulder suggestively when they weren’t even back together all the way yet. He thought then he would never take Betty to a place like this, not even for a quick lay, but then he never asked her opinion on it. The clerk mimes room fourteen, second floor, jabbing her thumb at the back stairs. Jug thanks her kindly and heads for the stairs.

 

He takes the steps two at a time. On the landing, he checks the Ruger nine settled against his lower back, full magazine, safety on, hammer uncocked. After the riots, he bought it from Dilton Doiley. Jughead didn’t know if he would need it, but just in case, he fished it out from underneath the trailer after he left Pop’s this afternoon. He thinks to himself this was supposed to be a find and report, but he wants to be the first to talk to Mustang, see where his head is at, probably nowhere stable after what went down in the diner with his daughter. Jughead decides to leave the pistol unchambered with the safety on because why set himself up for doing something stupid if he can avoid it. It’s his backup message if he needs it.

 

He raps thrice on room fourteen, the number plate just a four and a shadow of a one.

 

“Pinto, I swear if you come knocking on my door one more time for a hit --,” Mustang gripes as he opens the door, starts as he recognizes the face on the other side is not his junkie neighbor. A growl, “Jones.”

 

Jughead doesn’t have time to reach for the gun in his waistband as Mustang gets his fists tangled in Jug’s sherpa lapels, swinging him into the room, his shoulders catching the jamb painfully before Mustang sends him tumbling across the floor. He lands rough, his lower back jolting against the thin carpet, the pistol hard against his lumbar. Mustang slams the door closed, shouting epithets, warnings to the other residents to stay in their fucking rooms, and Jug wonders how often the bulls make wellness checks to the Last Resort. He wonders up until the point he hears the snick of the switchblade, and then his hands scramble for the Ruger at his back, pulling it on Mustang before he has the chance to lunge at Jughead with the blade.

 

Mustang stutter steps to a stop four feet from Jug, muzzled up in his sketchy single room. “Do you even know how to use that thing, junior?”

 

“Well, let’s think,” Jughead begins, giving Mustang a look like it might be too difficult for the older Serpent. “Safety.” His thumb flips it off. “Uncheck.” He moves his thumb over the hammer, pulls it back slowly, and Mustang’s lips twitch with the click. “Hammer.” Jug aims center mass. It wouldn’t be an adventure from this distance. “Check.” His index slides over the trigger, placing Mustang in the sights. “Did I miss anything?” He stands up, keeping the muzzle trained on Mustang.

 

The older man sneers, “Look who’s got his big boy pants on. You trying to earn your scales on me, junior?”

 

“I’m trying to keep them off.” At all costs, but the irony is not lost on Jughead. The irony of all he has done in the past year is not lost on him, but he doesn’t wear the jacket. He doesn’t have the mark of Cain yet.

 

Mustang laughs, derisive and short. “Too late for that, FP3.” He closes the switchblade and stuffs it in his back pocket. “Mind holstering that hand cannon, junior?” Jughead carefully releases the hammer, lowers the pistol but keeps it in both hands. Mustang is four inches shorter but stockier. If he came at Jughead dead sprint, it would be like getting hit by a wrecking ball. “You got questions, I’m sure. Tall Boy sent you.”

 

“He told me something, but I wanted to get it from you, from the horse’s mouth as it were.”

 

Mustang smirks at that. “Yeah, I did it. I dug up the gun, and I planted it in FP’s trailer. There, I said it.”

 

“What about the second part?”

 

“The second part?”

 

“The most important part. Why?”

 

“Money,” Mustang answers simply. “Money and blackmail.” Jughead blanches to think it always comes to one or the other. Or both. “Hiram Lodge’s associates approached me during the investigation. They offered me a lot of money to find the gun and frame FP. Well, not frame, of course, you know.” He scratches the stubble on his chin, mulling over the next bit. “They had things on me, too. Things that could put me away a while. The money was just to sweeten the deal, but I’m trying to get out from under it, I swear.”

 

“For Mia’s sake?” Mustang grinds his teeth, realizing this was how Jughead tracked him down. Jug is flying blind here. He feels dumb for mentioning her, but Mustang nods anyway. “So you’re going to the police then? To confess about Hiram extorting you and paying you to set up my dad to take the fall for Jason Blossom? I’m not sure it will get you far.” But, it might help out on his dad’s next appeal. He weighs his options, letting Mustang talk to the bulls, testify that he framed FP on Hiram Lodge’s orders.

 

“I got other things on Hiram Lodge. This past year, he’s paid me to do a lot more than plant a gun in a trailer. I’m looking for immunity, Jones. I got things on Hiram, on the Serpents, on you.”

 

Jughead runs his tongue across his teeth, feels the bleeding cold of anger running down his arms, ending in his hands still curled around the gun. “You have the money, right? Enough to sell everyone out and then ride off into the sunset squeaky clean? Where is it?” Jughead feels the prickling across his skin, ants under the surface, anger at being betrayed, trembling with the thought of handing him over to Tall Boy because he knows what that means. What he doesn’t know yet is if he is prepared for it, but something ugly twists in his gut, a yen to watch Mustang burn.

 

Mustang smiles and shakes his head. “Good luck getting that out of me, bullet or no, junior.”

 

“The depths of your loyalty are shocking, Mustang.” The snake might feel some lingering fealty to the Serpents, but he has never looked at Jughead as anything but a freeloader, reaping most of the perks with almost none of the sacrifice, running on the steam from his ‘small’ favors and the leftovers of his father’s reign.

 

“What right do you have to judge me? You’re not a Serpent.”

 

“You’re right,” Jughead agrees. “But, I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to warn you.”

 

“You can’t be half a Serpent, FP3.”

 

“I’m not a Serpent at all,” Jug contends. “Talk to Tall Boy, explain, or who knows what will happen to Mia.” Mustang’s rage flashes, his fingers twitching at his sides. Jughead tilts the muzzle upwards in response. “You have two days to make a decision before I hand you over to Tall Boy.” Jughead weighs the chances of Mustang skipping town with this threat, hardly empty knowing Tall Boy, but somehow he knows Mustang won’t. Mia is too important to him. This is Jughead’s only saving grace, he thinks, when he leaves the Last Resort Hostel and heads back to Riverdale.

 

* * *

 

 

**December 2016**

**Betty and Jughead**

**This Lullaby by Queens of the Stone Age**

 

With an hour before curfew, she comes down fast. She closes her eyes and sees a falling meteor smoldering to nothing. Pop settles his hand on her shoulder, prompting her to open her eyes when he asks if she wants the usual, but she only wants, needs ice water. His hand remains on her shoulder for a moment, a gentle squeeze. When he leaves, she imagines herself crumbling, a collection of Betty bricks tumbling into black water. _London bridge is falling down, falling down,_ she sings inside her head _._ Her thoughts keep circling back to children’s rhymes. Is this what her mind is like on drugs? Is this what everyone else is like on drugs? Is any of it real?

 

The bell above the door dings. She traces shapes in the condensation on the glass, spiraling clouds of fire and ash from the comet in her mind. He slides into the seat opposite her, two sleepless days revealed in the bruises beneath his eyes. She wants to kiss them closed, make him sleep, ask him to help her do the same, but instead she wonders, breaking the silence, “Where have you been?”

 

* * *

 

 

He flattens his palms on the formica tabletop, forgetting about his bandaged hand. “Around.” Gathering intel, he thinks, planning his attack. His father is getting antsy about Penny, but Jughead needs to be careful. Sweet Pea tells him the next pickup is in a week, the time and the location, a warehouse by the tracks. He will do it then, right before Christmas break.

 

She looks recently made up for something, her hair down but the curls losing their spring, her lips nearly denuded of lipstick and gloss. She looks real, though. He imagined walking into Pop’s and seeing her sitting in their booth like some sweet dream, pink and pastel and glowing, but here in the middle of the night, she looks like a real girl.

 

Betty nods at his bandaged hand. “What happened to your hand?”

 

Jughead regards his hand, remembering he cut himself practicing for Penny. It went deeper than he thought. “Vegas plays rough,” he lies, and she gets so sad, not believing him. “What about you? Where have you been?” _With who_ , he wants to ask, considering her unraveling curls, the remnants of her full makeup, the cream sleeveless blouse, and prim pants.

 

* * *

 

 She chews on ice, regarding him, chewing on his lie. “Same. Around. Have you quit the _Blue and Gold_?”

 

He shrugs, taps the tabletop with his good hand. “Call it a hiatus. Blame it on the holidays.” Like someone was asking about him. _Where is Jughead these days_? _We haven’t seen any of his articles in the newspaper lately._ She wants to tell him no one asks about him, but it makes her want to cry thinking about it because she wants to ask. It is all she can think about. Where is he? What is he doing? Who is he with? Why can’t he tell her?

 

The stilted conversation depresses her further. She lets the ice melt and burn on the back of her tongue, her teeth throbbing from too much cold. “So you’re coming back? Eventually?” Hopefully.

 

* * *

 

He sighs. “Maybe.” He doesn’t know how to say he wants to without violating her ‘space’ mandate. He wants to ask if that is what she wants, if that is what she is asking.

 

He watches her fingers clutching the half-empty water glass, the tendons in the back of her hand straining. Jug reaches across the tabletop to fold his hand over hers, prying her fingers from the glass. “Are you okay?” His thumbs stroke across the baby soft tops of her hands, and he feels the tendons relax with his gentle ministrations. Feeling the tension abate, he cannot take it. He abandons his side of the booth, slides into hers, corners her against the window.

 

“Juggie,” she sighs, and the pressure in his chest yields. His heart melts inside her watery blue eyes, her irises swimming in something he thinks is regret, maybe a tinge of relief, wonders if it is only his feelings reflected inside them.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers close, her hands gathered up inside his. Her forehead finds his lips, and she hears him mumble about being unmoored. “I wish we could just go.” Escape, she thinks, to a place without serial killers and dead teenagers and drug lords. A place where they could be okay, for once. He whispers these sentiments in her ear, his lips ghosting along her jawline.

 

It is probably too much PDA for Pop’s, but Mr. Tate doesn’t say anything when he leaves them a strawberry milkshake with one straw. Jughead doesn’t notice the shop owner, the complimentary dessert, his attention focused squarely on her, on their dwindling time, the window closing with each passing second. She feels his hand sliding across her thigh, and her head feels so heavy, lolling towards him like she might nod off at any moment. His lips catch her temple again, murmuring how much he wants to take her away.

 

“You always take the strawberry, Jug,” she says, remembering the milkshake on the table.

 

* * *

 

 

He feels drunk, heady with each press of his lips to her skin, smelling the vanilla and the end of the night, everything else falling away. He hears her mention something about a strawberry, and he glances at the milkshake that has somehow appeared at their booth. He cannot stomach it right now, for once not hungry for food. He doesn’t have time for milkshakes.

 

When he doesn’t take the strawberry, she reaches for it, popping one slice into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully, almost morosely. She tries to offer him the other half, but he gets his taste of it in her mouth, hastily pressing his lips to hers. He hears the soft groan in the back of her throat when he slips his tongue inside. She drops the strawberry on the tabletop so she can run her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, gliding up underneath his beanie. His palm finds her throat, his fingers pressing up along her jawline to tilt her face, to taste more of her, to get his fill.

 

* * *

 

They both think, _I love you_ , but don’t say.

 

* * *

 

 Her phone dings with a message, a warning bell from her mother. _Time’s up_ , Betty remembers. _Fantasy over._ She turns her face away, but his lips trail across her cheek, bargaining for more time, murmuring sweet nothings in her ear to keep her there, leaving things that tickle and throb in her lower belly. She feels the words in the back of her throat, the ugly rationalizations, the truth. She wants to tell him.

 

A gaggle of teenagers laughs from two booths down. Betty glances at them, hears Jughead quietly begging, his forehead pressed to her temple.

 

* * *

 

 

“Please,” he pleads. “Please tell me maybe we can walk it back.” Even as he begs for it, he isn’t sure he should. He wants to tell her. He wants to promise that after he follows through with his father’s marching orders, he can tell her the truth.

 

“Jug.” She sighs, a placating swipe of her thumb across his cheekbone, unable to look him in the eye.

 

“Please,” he implores, desperate.

 

He watches her ruminate on it before she meets his gaze, her eyes bordering on green. “Yes, maybe,” she says, still unsure. “Maybe we can go back. Maybe I can tell you after all of this is done.”

 

Tell him what. What is it? What could be so bad? _Stones in glass houses, Jones_.

 

“I have to get home, Jughead.” Her palm is soft and comforting on his cheek, and she kisses him chaste on each remnant smile line at the corners of his mouth. He lets her go, sliding from the booth to let her out, helping her stand. As she takes the first step away, he tugs her back by the hand, presses his lips to her temple one last time, lingers until she pulls away.

 

Jughead watches her weave through the parking lot to her mother’s station wagon, makes sure she gets inside the car. He only looks away once her car disappears behind the tree line at the end of Pop’s lot. He reaches into his back pocket for a fiver, but Pop passes with _it’s on the house, son_. Half the strawberry rests on the tabletop next to the uneaten milkshake. Jughead tastes the strawberry on his tongue, strawberry, and Betty. He pops the strawberry in his mouth, drinks half the milkshake so he doesn’t feel bad about Pop going out of his way. The ice cream curdles in his stomach, but he forces himself to finish it. Food as punishment, he thinks wryly. There is some fresh irony for him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'll notice above, I've added another two chapters. I cannot seem to stick with my original outline, and this monster keeps getting bigger. It shouts _feed me, seymour_ every time I open a draft, but I haven't tried blood yet so. This chapter was originally 25K long, but the last two sections were shifted to the next chapter, which, silver lining maybe, means the next chapter should come sooner rather than later.


	6. cannibal's hymn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for continuing to follow this story, and I wanted to say again that I have appreciated the very thoughtful commentary on this piece. It certainly helps keep morale up :) Also, of course, I appreciate my two lovely betas _heartunsettledsoul_ and _imserpentking_. They put up with my bullshit excuses and 'mostly occasional' anxieties about writing this story. 
> 
> Speaking of concerns, I would like to offer a word of warning for this chapter before anyone proceeds. Unless you scrolled right through this. Then that's on you, buddy. I covered my ass. This chapter contains a moderately graphic depiction of body horror, drug overdose, drug use, and I hope everybody is ready for some off kilter Jughead. It was always the plan, Stan.

 

**December 2016**

**Betty**

**All Fired Up by Interpol**

 

At school on Monday, Betty finds Veronica crying in the bathroom. “Ugh, I’m ruining like twenty dollars-worth of makeup right now,” Veronica bemoans even as more tears fall, turning away from Betty and the mirror to swipe under her eyes.

 

“V, what’s going on?” Betty wets some paper towels and hands them to her friend. She still feels crashed out from Saturday night, slogging through each motion yet she musters up enough concern for Veronica. She spent the remainder of the weekend failing to sleep and trying to discern what was real, what was fake about that night at the Pembrooke, and now she sways in the girls’ restroom searching for genuine compassion, hoping it is genuine.

 

“Nothing,” Veronica claims. “Nothing happened. I stopped it before something could happen.”

 

“What do you mean? Stopped what?”

 

Veronica chews the inside of her cheek, turning back to the mirror to check her appearance, dabbing a paper towel at her tear ducts to catch the rest. Betty watches her attempt to slide the mask back on, rummaging in her purse for her makeup bag. Betty touches her cheek, too tired to search inside herself for her own. She feels stripped away by her crash. Armory empty and promising to never do drugs again, Betty wakes up when Veronica finally explains, “It was nothing. Nick came on strong, and I rebuffed him. That’s all. It wasn’t the first time.”

 

Betty hears herself in those words verbatim, the same rationalizations, and justifications, the same cavalier attitude towards Nick’s vicious cycle of entitled abuse. “What did he do?”

 

Veronica gives her a look in the mirror, senses the shift in Betty’s tone. “Please don’t tell Archie, Betty,” Veronica pleads when she faces her head on, as if that is the most important consideration, Archie’s feelings. “Just – it’s – I already told my mother, okay. She got the St. Claires to invest. We’re trying to rebuild Lodge industries without my father, but we don’t have a lot of allies. The St. Claires, despite their background, are still useful and open to reputable and legitimate investments.” Betty can hear Veronica parroting her mother, legitimizing a predator’s behavior for the sake of the Lodge legacy. “We need them,” Veronica urges, and Nick took advantage of that need. “Betty, look at me.” As if Veronica can see the wheels turning in Betty’s head, can see the screws stripping as the well-crafted and carefully maintained machine falls apart. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone. Promise me you won’t tell Archie.”

 

For the first time, Betty wonders if they are both the same, masks walking and talking - Veronica’s overbold confidence and insolent charisma a perfect foil for Betty’s unending compassion and saintly tolerance  - both covers for Veronica’s familial insecurities, her mean girl backslides, an endless run of masks to rival Betty’s, a ticking time bomb, knowing that eventually carving her nails into her palms will no longer satisfy the second face.  

 

She has been hollowed out by her anxiety, left pitted in places from the drugs, vulnerable now to the thing inside her that unfurls, fitting comfortably into her limbs and settling into the emptied spaces in her head. Starved for control, the thing assures her friend, “I promise, V.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re not doing a good enough job, Betty,” he growls over the receiver. You broke the rules. Doing drugs. Seeing him behind my back. You’re becoming just like the rest of them! I won’t let it happen!”

 

She was stupid to meet him in such a public place, foolish letting her emotions dictate her actions, an idiot for folding under peer pressure. She feels like the poster child for those _DARE_ posters. _Better watch out kiddos. Don’t do drugs or you'll get axe-murdered by a serial killer._ Betty wants to throw her phone across the room, watch the screen shatter, hear the abrupt end to his growl as the phone connects with the wall. Instead, she curls in on herself, cupping her hand over the receiver when she hears her mother in the hall outside her bedroom. “Please, I didn’t mean – please don’t hurt him.”

 

“Then give me another name. Right now,” he demands.

 

“What?”

 

“If you want me to spare him, give me another name or I start with the Southsider. The name of someone guilty.” He will not settle for less. “Come on, Betty. One little name,” he teases, as if it only a small thing, an inconsequential exchange.  

 

“I won’t.” She swears it but feels the thing sliding down her back with a phantom tenderness, a sweet whispered assurance that everything will be all right, that whatever sinister creature inhabits her exists for this exact purpose. She just needs to let go, let it act where she cannot.

 

The disembodied voice vows, “Then, I’ll kill him.” So simple. No compromise. One thing for another. _It’s not a thing, Betty. It’s a person_ , she reminds herself. “And your sister. And your mother and your father and everyone else you hold dear.” But, she keeps forgetting. He doesn’t talk about them like they are human beings, and she can feel herself sliding into that same tendency, tokens to be exchanged for the safety of others, security rationed out. It becomes like that, feeding him the leavings while bartering for the betters. He forces her to weigh them out, people, place their flesh on the scale and judge them wanting, and she knows he does it on purpose. He just wants to see what she will do.

 

The thing inside of her goes killer still, smelling blood in the water but it doesn’t have to bare its teeth for the next meal. Another agent of chaos is more than willing to do the deed. Without hesitation, it whispers, “Nick. Nick St. Claire.”

 

“I told you we were the same.” She can practically hear the purr in his voice, the shiver of morbid pleasure running down his spine. The other one, the thing inside quivers with the same kind of twisted satisfaction, but Betty feels the world go to gray with the click of the dial tone.

 

* * *

 

 

Five days have passed since she gave Nick’s name to the Hood. The day after her phone call with the Black Hood, the St. Claires returned to New York, but there was no mention of their son, whether or not he accompanied them. When Betty tries to pilfer any information, Veronica shuts her down. When she does, Betty thinks meanly that Veronica might act more grateful. The other Betty snipes that she took care of Veronica’s perpetrator. A little thanks would go a long way. _No good deed goes unpunished, Betty_ , it muses. Betty ignores it, figures no news is good news. She wants to start avoiding Veronica.

 

On Thursday after school in the _Blue and Gold_ , Betty shuffles through a stack of Jughead’s drafts for some stories she nixed for past issues. He kept them just in case they needed an emergency article to fill in a gap. Now all Betty has are gaps in the _Blue and Gold_. Kevin’s gossip column has doubled in size. She convinced Veronica to start a biweekly style column. It was all Betty could squeeze out of Veronica who asserted her time was limited and invaluable. In Jughead’s absence, Betty’s hard-hitting school newspaper has become a fluff rag, a page six from cover to cover.

 

She finds a half-finished article about the expanding jingle jangle market grounding itself in Riverdale High’s halls, but Betty told Jughead he didn’t have enough quotes to publish the piece and Principal Weatherbee would have their head if she tried, especially given Jughead painted first-string defensive tackle and team captain Reggie Mantle in a less than flattering light. Now that Betty knows the jingle jangle was coming from Southside High’s English teacher, the new and newly dead Sugar Man, she laughs at the quack theories Jughead details in the article about Reggie Mantle being upper management in the jingle jangle trade. Reggie was only a foot soldier, which was probably still a generous designation. Yet, jingle jangle remains on the streets and in the halls of Riverdale High. She knows because Reggie still makes locker deposits. She wonders if someone has picked up the torch or whether the dealers are running their supply to the end.

 

Betty sets the half-finished article on her side of the desk. Perhaps she can finish it for Jughead, pick up a few more anonymous quotes from the student body, leave Reggie out of it. Maybe it will be a good distraction. Maybe it will appease the Hood in some way to know killing the Sugar Man has made a dent in the jingle jangle trade.

 

Lollipop jingle jangles on her phone. Speak of the devil.

 

“I have an early Christmas present for you, Betty,” he says over the receiver, sounding positively tickled. “As thanks for Nick St. Claire.” Betty swallows because she isn’t certain the Hood got his hands on Veronica’s repeat offender. There have been no missing person reports filed, no passing gossip from Veronica about the St. Claires, radio silence on the consequences of Betty’s criminal name dropping. “One question.”

 

Betty balances the phone between her ear and shoulder, straightening the stack of Jughead’s drafts. The mundane action startles her for a moment like she is having a conversation with her father about dinner tonight. She sets down the drafts and grabs the phone from her shoulder, turning towards the Black Hood murder board. “There’s only one I care about now.” Maybe she is becoming inured to all of this, accepting this new normal. Or maybe she has finally let go. Somehow this comforts her.

 

“You want to know who I am. And I want you to know, Betty. On the eastern edge of Fox Forest road, there is an unused service road. At the end of this road, there is an abandoned house, where it all began. You’ll find your answer there.” Betty accidentally bites her tongue at the click of the dial tone, tastes copper in her mouth as she stares at the dead screen.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m here.”

 

“Do you see it?”

 

Betty notices the dark shape on the ground, bends down to pick it up, keeping the receiver to her ear. “Yes.” The black polyester scratches, cheap like it would irritate. She wonders offhand if it hurts to wear it? Does he treat it like a necessary burden, this executioner’s hood? Does he feel martyred to wear it?”

 

“It’s the answer to your question,” the Hood intimates, and Betty wonders which one. She has a dozen running through her brain. “Put it on.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Put it on and you’ll see.”

 

Then, she remembers, looking down at the repurposed ski cap in her hands. She tugs the hood on, unrolling the black polyester over her face. It doesn’t breathe well. It smothers. She breathes through her mouth, murmuring, “It’s on.”

 

“Now, turn around.” He sounds so pleased, practically tickled with it, her subjugation.

 

Somethings tells her he isn’t watching this. Does he know she put it on? She feels foolish now for listening to his demands, for thinking he watches now, but she knows he must do it on purpose. Sometimes he does see her. Sometimes he doesn’t. He can’t be everywhere at once, but he wants her to assume he can, that he is as omnipotent and omnipresent as God. He wants her to feel as if she is forever walking in the shadow of the big man.

 

Despite these rationalizations, Betty turns around and her heart jolts to a stop, jumps up into her throat when she catches the hooded figure behind her. She lifts her Maglite ready to strike until she recognizes it is her reflection in the filmy mirror. “Why are you doing this to me?”

 

“To show you we’re the same.”

 

When he hangs up, Betty strikes the mirror with the butt of her flashlight, shattering it and her hooded reflection, She rips the ski cap off her head, catches some hair. Fly-aways sticking to her cheeks and forehead, a puff of air leaves her mouth, blowing strands of hair away only for the static to bring them back against her skin. “You bastard,” she says breathlessly, willing her heartbeat to settle.

 

The worst parts of herself, her judgments and vendettas become a real person in the Black Hood. He gives voice to the ugliest of her thoughts, acts on her veiled resentments. She shifts the blame, argues the voice is her mother’s, her judgments only a product of years of resentful Cooper conditioning because while she could think in passing that Fred Andrews and Hermione Lodge should not engage in extramarital affairs until their own marriages had concluded in the legal sense, she would never wish harm on Fred. She could think that Geraldine Grundy was a child predator, but Betty would never advocate for her lynching. The beast within keeps scratching at her periphery. _You need me for this, Betty_. Otherwise, she will break. She is breaking.

 

She feels so useless. Her mind won’t work the way it is supposed to, the way it always had before. If she could just call Jughead, explain the evidence. He always helped her make connections she never would have on her own. He helped her just by sitting there quiet, unassuming, his infectious patience. She has become so damn useless.

 

 _What are you good at, Betty_? It’s her father, of all people, inside her head, the first person to encourage her interests, her investigations, more so than her own mother who used to yell at her when the neighbors would find Betty staked out in their crawlspaces.

 

 _Finding people_ , she murmurs back, quiet at first, uncertain. _Filling in the gaps where laws fail_ , her father builds on, and she remembers their afternoon in Pop’s, how distracted she was by Jughead sitting a few booths down and her father right across from her telling her how proud he was, how there were few things Betty wouldn’t do in pursuit of - _finding the truth_ , she finishes with more conviction.

 

She stares at the shattered remains of the mirror littering the ground at her feet. Her face replicated within each shard, she finally senses something besides terror in her eyes. It looks foreign there on her face, and for a moment, it doesn’t look like her at all. A flicker of recognition, recollection tugging in the back of her mind, and she realizes she is wrenching, twisting the black hood in her hands. A cold bleeding wash of anger that starts in her hands, winding its way up her arms, her shoulders where it turns hot, where it shifts to rage as it flushes up her neck, suffusing her skull. A tiny ember of fury sparks in the back of her eyes but each jerk and smash of the hood in her hands adds fuel to the fire, imagining his head caught between her palms, wringing it from his neck.

 

 _What are you good at, Betty?_ Her father, more commanding. The other Betty hooks her fingers inside the open sockets of the hood, tears the ski cap open at the place where his face would be. _Making the bad guys pay._  

 

When Betty gets home, she grabs a spare steno and starts outlining, her scribble large and hand heavy, three lines for each bullet point. Questions and bullet points, everything she knows about the Hood, about his victims, everything. What is the significance of the house? Why did he send her there? Research the house. What is the significance of the Hood? He sees himself as judge, jury, and executioner, especially the executioner.

 

Executioner. She checks the Hood for a tag, the brand of ski cap, and then she realizes it is homemade, the amateur stitching, as if he sewed it with a needle and thread, cut the holes haphazardly with an old pair of scissors. _Homegrown. Self-sufficient_. He made it himself. He could have bought any generic brand of black ski cap, but he chose to make it himself. Something inside her screams _mother!_ Her own mother still hems her own pants, helped take in Betty’s shirts when she lost weight between freshman and sophomore years. She scratches out more questions, the significance of making the Hood himself, speculations, _serious mommy issues?_  

 

It takes a day and a half to dig up the truth on the abandoned house at the end of the service road, the scene of a mass murder committed by the Riverdale Reaper over thirty years ago. During the day, Betty returns to the house to search for clues, things the Hood might have missed, but he makes it easy for her. He doesn’t bother to hide the evidence. Betty’s fingers trace along the three sets of initials on the kitchen door jamb, the little sister Sue, the older brother Tommy, and a third with initials J.C. The newspaper clippings from the Riverdale Reaper massacre only detailed the death of Jim and Mary Ellen Conway and their two children. She discovered Mary Ellen Conway was a seamstress. “Who are you, J.C.?”

 

The previous sheriff’s case files are centered on the living room floor, practically gift-wrapped for Betty. She lugs the briefcase to her mother’s station wagon. No one is coming back for these, she reasons. He wants her to have them. He wants her to find him.

 

 _You find the truth, Betty, you get your reward_.

 

* * *

 

 

Archie answers the door on the third round of knocks. “Betty, hey.” His simple greeting, moving aside by gentlemanly instinct to let her inside, but she remains on the threshold.

 

“I’m looking for Jughead.”

 

Archie glances behind him to see his dad shuffling down the stairs one step at a time, relying heavily on the banister. The redhead moves out onto the porch and closes the front door behind him, standing barefoot on the icy floorboards with his arms folded across his middle. He looks a little sweaty, his hands wrapped, like maybe Betty caught him hitting the punching bag, which would explain how long it took him to get to the door, which would also likely imply Jughead wasn’t home since he hated listening to Archie pound away for hours on end. “He’s not home.” That answers that question, and Betty feels vindicated in her assumptions, shaking the rust off her inner Nancy Drew.

 

“Where is he?”

 

“I think he went to visit his dad,” Archie supposes. “Maybe.” The redhead thinks on it. “He doesn’t really tell me much these days.” Archie sighs and leans back against the front door.

 

His father peeks around the curtain and gives Betty a small wave but doesn’t pry further into their conversation. Betty smiles back, but it falls just as quick when she notices Archie isn’t, that he is unshaven and knife-eyed.  

 

“I’ll be honest, Betty, I’m feeling a little lost these days,” Archie confesses. “I mean, my dad is getting better every day, but that maniac is still out there. He could strike again at any moment. He could come to finish what he started. And me and Veronica, things haven’t been great since the party. Our last conversation didn’t end well. And Jughead is AWOL. Sometimes he sleeps here but most of the time it’s on the living room couch or in the garage with a space heater. It’s like he doesn’t want to be in the same room as me. He won’t talk to me.”

 

Archie stops his ramble abruptly and regards Betty standing on the Andrews porch, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed for once. “But, you look okay.” Because she has a purpose now. She is so close she can feel it. “You look better than the last time I saw you.” At Veronica’s party, blitzed on jingle jangle and rapping about her inner demons.

 

“Are you busy right now, Archie?”

 

“Do I look busy?” It is meant to be self-deprecating, a self-conscious smile that falls flat.

 

“Can you get your dad’s car?” She was hoping to ride on the back of Jughead’s motorcycle again, craving the excuse to be closer. But if Jughead is screening Archie’s calls and ignoring Fred’s messages, then it is safe to say he probably won’t respond to her either. Maybe it is better this way. If the Hood is watching, he won’t be suspicious of Archie and Betty spending time together. Maybe the Hood would approve of her redheaded childhood best friend, accept the façade of rekindled affections. Then, she can continue to search for the Hood unhindered, without any more threats hanging over her head, end this forced separation from the one she wants.

 

“Sure, why? You need a ride somewhere?”

 

“Have you ever been to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy?”

 

* * *

 

**December 2016**

**Jughead**

**I Appear Missing by Queens of the Stone Age**

 

“You’re new.” Penny glances at the crowbar in his hands. “Fresh meat?” She wonders, scanning his body for some telltale insignia, but then her eyes land on his crown, recognition blooming on her face. “Well, hey there, junior, pleasant surprise! Nice crowbar.”

 

“This?” He looks down at the crowbar as if remembering he brought it. “I brought it in case I needed to pry the door open.”

 

“Well, my door is always open, junior.” She doesn’t remember his name.

 

“It’s Jughead.”

 

“Right, I remember it was something ridiculous like that. Kind of a mouthful, though.” Penny eyes the crowbar but moves to let him inside. “You gonna stand out there all night, or are you gonna help me load these crates? Where’s the truck? I thought Sweet Pea was coming tonight.”

 

“Yeah, it’s just me tonight, Penny.”

 

She starts towards the wooden crates, the top popped open on one and a pile of Saran-wrapped bricks stacked next to it. “Tell Sweet Pea I don’t like surprises. If he wants to send a sub, he needs to let me know ahead of time.”

 

“You want to run a tight ship. I understand that, Penny.” Jughead stares at the crowbar in his hand, the cold metal leaching into his palm, the joints stiffening, the end of the tool curving a little like a snake about to strike. “Do you know Murphy’s law?” She barely listens, though, loading drugs into the crate while checking her watch. This is his greatest asset, he thinks. No one expects the worst from him.

 

He walks up to the crates, his steps careful, unassuming, _here to be of service, Penny!_ The crowbar is heavy and cold in his hand, and Penny glances at him, the pry bar. “You don’t need that for this.”

 

“I didn’t bring it for this,” Jughead admits, passing it to his other hand and back to his dominant. He still isn’t sure if he can do this. It would be so easy, one quick swing of the crowbar and she would be out like a light, like a bolt pistol on the forehead of unsuspecting chattel.

 

“Is this supposed to scare me?” His grip tightens around the pry bar, and she watches his knuckles whiten. He needs her to run, fight back, make this harder. “You’re making a big mistake, Jones.” Then, she cuffs him on the side of the head, boxing his ear, a sharp jolt to his equilibrium that sends him stumbling off to the side. He barely registers her sprinting for the door, the sound of her footsteps like distant echoes and the room tilting to the side like she is running through a funhouse.

 

Adrenaline surges from nowhere, sick with it and the disorientation from Penny’s smack to the side of his head, but she doesn’t get as far as he thought. Like he is on autopilot, his hand manages to tangle itself in the back of her leather jacket and yank her backwards. She swipes at him again, the hard point of her elbow greeting the space where his clavicle meets his shoulder, but he jerks her back by her jacket so violently she falls on her ass. He cannot imagine what the concrete does to her tailbone, but he hears her howl, feels her rage, animal and unpredictable, making a connection with his shin in the form of her boot heel. He lets himself fall on top of her because it was going that way regardless, ignoring the throbbing pain in his shin, his knees when they make contact with the concrete, the thudding in his left ear that sends him reeling. At some point, he loses the crowbar.

 

She reminds him of a feral cat, hissing, and spitting curse words, and then he sees the claws, the blade moments before she swipes it at him, catching him in the side of his gut. It doesn’t register at first that the knife made it through layers of clothing, his skin opening around the blade under so much flannel, but then more pain to blend with the rest that dulls behind a flush of fresh adrenaline. His fist connects with her jaw, and then his free hand grabs her wrist, slams her arm back against the concrete to knock the switchblade out of her hand. She scratches at him, two nails carving under his jawline until his fist comes down again, again.

 

With Penny finally subdued, he sits back on his heels to survey the damage, his and hers matching sets. He raises his shirts to take stock, how deep she went, and there is a curtain of blood dripping down and disappearing into the line of his jeans. He doesn’t have time for a patch job. There are more deadlines to meet tonight.

 

First things first, he manipulates her out of her leather jacket and tosses it to the side. Penny won’t be needing it anymore, and it can be repurposed for a new recruit. Next, he flips her onto her stomach, keeping her arms pinned behind her with one hand while he reaches for the handcuffs in his back pocket, the pair he kept from his run-in with Greendale law enforcement. With Betty.

 

Once he has her handcuffed, he sifts through Penny’s pockets, her tangled mess of hair for anything she could use to get out of the cuffs. Spending as much time with Betty as he had the last few months has made him overcautious but also, Jug being Jug, to expect the worst, especially from others. He considers in passing whether Betty would make a much better drug queen-pin mastermind than the hot-headed Penny Peabody. _But she’s too good for this, right, Jones?_

 

 _Are you going to join the Serpents?_ Is this what he has to do to keep his word to her? _Don’t they hurt people?_ Jughead wonders off hand how many people he would hurt to get back to Betty. Hasn’t he already done that? Hasn’t that already backfired?

 

 _Just this one thing, Jones. Just this one favor._ And then he won’t have to be such a right shit anymore. It’s as easy as that. _Besides_ , he thinks looking down at Penny, unconscious, bruises forming on her cheekbone, her jaw, _she deserves it._ They all deserved it.

 

He finds Penny’s car keys, closes her switchblade, stuffs them both into his jacket pocket. Checking the time, he is ten minutes ahead of schedule, uncharacteristic for him. _Maybe you’re too good at this_. “Okay, Peabody, we’re going on a little ride,” he informs the snake charmer, unresponsive, dragging her over to the trunk of her Pontiac.

 

* * *

 

He takes his riding gloves off. This will be easier with bare hands.

“Look who grew a pair,” she comments first, kneeling in front of the headlights of her Grand Prix, perched on the bank of the Sweetwater with her hands cuffed behind her. “Big man,” she admonishes, breathless and demeaning with no skin and no kin.

 

He presses the release on the switchblade, and her ears prick up at the snick of the blade. “Any worse than you making teenagers push gutter drugs, Pen?” He directs the tip of the blade at her. “You want to run a drug ring, extort people, that’s your business.” The blade points across the river. “But, you’re not setting up shop in Riverdale, Pen. That’s your clean slate right there. Go forth and prosper.”

 

“You stupid cocky kid.” Her tongue pressed to the corner of her mouth as she cocks her head to the side, thinking this must be one big fucking joke but not on her. “You can’t hurt one of your own.”

 

“Unfortunately for you, Penny, I’m not a Serpent,” he informs her, stumping the woman for the first time. “But, FP sends his love.”

 

She latches on to that, her rage twisting her face into something ugly, something Jug thinks has been festering a while. “You may not be a Serpent now, Jughead Jones, but you will be. How do you think it started for me?” Her shoulders strain against the cuffs as she spits in FP’s name. “First with the favors and then you’ll need them more than they need you. I just figured out the game, Juggie, but you, you’re so fucking naïve. Here doing your daddy’s dirty work. Kudos, junior. Cut from the same cloth you two, but I should’ve known better, right? You cut the head off the snake and it still has the power to bite.”

 

Doesn’t he know it. “Think of it like this, Penny. I’m reversing the course for you. I’m giving you an out, so take it. Your clean slate is right there across the river,” he reasons, pointing the blade at the distant lights of Greendale, haloed in the mist over the Sweetwater.

 

“Go shoot yourself in the face again, you condescending half-baked Cobain wannabe,” she bites.

 

“You don’t seem to like being a Serpent, Penny. I sense some resentment, and it isn’t new, is it?”

 

“Are you trying to psychoanalyze me, second-rate Pony Boy?”

 

“I’m trying to offer you a solution, but here’s the catch.” He pauses for emphasis, checking the edge of the blade with his thumb. “Your tattoo,” he hints, tipping the knife at her arm. “New gangs don’t take kindly to old signage, so I’m willing to do a quick fix, pro bono.” She catches the legal pun and sneers. He stands over her now, the gurgling of the Sweetwater behind her, nighttime insects flittering in the headlight beams between them. A moth skitters past his neck, wisps of its wings reminding him of Betty’s fingertips, and then it feels final, his decision.

 

He grabs her shoulder and forces her onto her stomach, his knee digging into her lower back to keep her pinned. “Jesus, Jones, you’re not really going to do this.” She still doesn’t believe it, that he could do this, that he is capable.

 

“I hope you keep this sharp.” Jughead knows it is with how the blade made quick work of his flannel and t-shirt and the skin of his abdomen. He moves his knee into her cupped palms to keep them still, his free hand bunching up her shirtsleeve to access the inked patch of skin on her forearm. “This will go easier if you don’t squirm,” he advises, pinching the skin around her tattoo and pressing the flat of the blade against the edge of the ink.

 

“Jughead, stop, please,” she pleads, and he feels her trembling under his knee, gooseflesh rising on her forearm. “Please, I’m gone. I won’t come back.”

 

He shifts a little of his weight off her palms, watches some of the blood come back into her hands. She continues to shake, the cuffs clinking with her trembling. It’s believable, her fear, but belief is not certainty and faith is not a substitute for action. “I want to believe you, Penny,” he admits before leaning down, the blade moving away from her tattoo as he brings his mouth behind her ear. “But, I want you to believe me too when I say I’m going to take more than your tattoo if you set foot in Riverdale again.” And with this, she would know he meant it.

 

His weight shifts back onto her palms, his fingers pinching the skin with more resolve as he presses the blade into her tattoo. He hears her boot heels scrabbling against the dirt, digging small desperate trenches when the blade breaks the skin. Her kicking gets worse when he angles deeper. Then, she screams.

 

* * *

 

 

He walks back to the highway alone, stuffing the souvenirs in his back pocket, Penny’s switchblade and a folded up bandana. Before he reaches the highway, he throws up at the side of a sugar maple tree. He spits on the puddle of vomit steaming in the circle of duff. It reminds him the bandana is still warm in his back pocket, and the flesh steamed in the crisp December night air when it came away from her arm. This was the worst thing he was capable of doing, he reasons with himself. This was the worst, right? _You’ve done worse things, Jones_. He realizes the voice inside his head sounds just like his father, spits again.   

He swipes the back of his hand across his mouth and smells blood. While Penny whimpered and cried, free of the handcuffs and relieved of her snake charmer duties, Jug washed his hands by the bank of the Sweetwater. There shouldn’t be any blood left, but the smell is there in the back of his mind. The skin, it bleeds more than he thought when he went deep enough.

 

Toni and Sweet Pea are idling on the shoulder. Toni returns his helmet and his bike, looks at his gloved hands when he takes the reins like searching for proof of what he has done. He stuffs Penny’s leather jacket in the seat compartment of his motorcycle, and Toni stares at him, _is that it?_ She rides to the Wyrm on the back of Sweet Pea’s bike. Neither of them asks Jughead for the details. Neither of them is sure he went through with it.

 

But their doubts start to disappear when Jughead walks straight up to Tall Boy seated in the center of the Whyte Wyrm. “Can I talk to you in private?” Tall Boy glances sidelong at Mustang then jerks his head towards the back rooms behind the bar. Jughead knows what is back there, stock rooms and cold rooms, Hog-Eye’s office that was always really his dad’s headquarters, and the stairs leading to the basement where Jason Blossom was murdered.

 

He follows Tall Boy and Mustang to the office. Sweet Pea closes the door behind them, locks it. Tall Boy takes a seat in his father’s chair and Mustang balances on the edge of FP’s desk. If anyone has any further doubts about whether Jughead followed through, they vanish when he draws the folded up bandana out of his back pocket and sets it down in front of Tall Boy. “What’s that?”

 

“That’s your reassurance,” Jughead clarifies as Tall Boy unwraps the bandana, Penny’s snake nestled on a congealed pool of red. It almost looks fake, but then Jughead produces Penny’s jacket, her initials sewn into the right sleeve, the scale of justice patch underneath. “And a warning not to get in bed with the Lodges, from the Serpent King.”

 

The room goes quiet. Jughead’s gaze skirts the row of unblinking eyes, and it feels like a nightmare like it was a normal night at the Wyrm not five minutes previous, the usual drunken bedlam outside fading away with the sober nightmare quiet of his father’s former office.

 

He turns to leave when Tall Boy stands, skirts the desk and slings his arm along Jug’s shoulder just as he reaches the door. Tall Boy swings him back into the room, shoving the door closed behind Jughead with some kind of unavoidable finality that leaves Jughead feeling unsettled. “Say hello to our new snake handler.”

 

* * *

 

 

The Andrews house is quiet when he gets home. Mary returned to Chicago a few days ago. Fred must be asleep, so Jughead tries to be as soundless as possible as he enters through the backdoor. He gets away with it because Vegas is probably sleeping at the foot of Fred’s bed. He only came here because the trailer has no running water or heat and no first aid kit.

 

Jughead expects to find Archie upstairs asleep, too, but his bed is still made. He tosses his beanie on the bedspread, shuffles his shoes off next to his air mattress.

 

The only thing he wants to do is pass out, but he needs a shower. He probably needs stitches, but he wanted to get out of the Wyrm as quickly and painlessly as possible, hoping to escape without anyone’s probing expectations, without a shot and a salute to welcome him into the fold. He failed on that front anyway. Tall Boy cornered him in the parking lot, offering his father’s Serpent jacket as his unjust reward. ‘It’s yours if you want it.’

 

‘What is this? An initiation?’

 

‘No, Jones, by Serpent law, this was grounds for a beating and worse. But, it took guts to do what you did. It helped me and mine, too. I see a lot of your dad in you. You do what it takes to protect your own.’ He gestured at the jacket in Jug’s hands. ‘What you did, it stays between us, but I want you to know our door is always open.’

 

The jacket is stuffed inside the seat compartment of FP’s motorcycle. _No pressure, Jones_ , he thinks to himself now.

 

He peels his flannel and shirt up from his abdomen, wincing at the tacky stick of dried blood separating from cotton and reopening the wound. More blood seeps lazily, unhurriedly trailing down his abdomen like little babbling brooks that end at the seams of his jeans and underwear, which are soaked through with blood and ruined.

 

On his way out of the Wyrm, Sweet Pea sidelined him to ask about what happened with Penny. Knives in Jug’s eyes, he really just wanted to sleep. His gut was burning, and he zipped up his jacket so no one could see him bleed. ‘Did you really do that?’ His admiring tone set Jug on edge because maybe Sweets thought he appeared relatively unscathed, that Penny would have put up more of a fight. He gave Jug a chummy punch to the shoulder, right where Penny clipped him with her elbow. Jughead braced himself, clenched his fists in his jacket pocket and tried not to jerk back from the friendly gesture.

 

He dodged Sweet Pea’s questions while wondering if the bleeding stopped. Inside his jacket pocket, he pressed his palm to his stomach, pain flaring. Sweet Pea caught the click in his jaw, but Jughead shrugged into him, ‘Sweets, you really gotta be smarter next time.’ Jughead relaxed when Sweets immediately switches to the defensive, that it wasn’t just him. He glanced at Tall Boy’s son, Fun Size, and Jughead looked back at the kid standing next to Tall Boy at the bar, nearly a foot shorter than his father but taller since he last saw him, remembering past Serpent barbeques when his name was still Arthur. When Fun Size reached for a shot on the bar top, his father smacked him on the back of the head, but that hand fell to the kid’s leather-covered shoulder shortly after, giving him a fatherly rock.

 

Sweet Pea drew his attention back, ‘I could’ve handled her, you know.’

 

‘Yeah and broken your cardinal rules, right?’ That jacket makes him. Sweets wouldn’t know who he was without it.

 

‘So are you gonna join?’

 

A cursory glance at Sweets lands on the tattoo on his neck. The kid has no shame. Everything is on the surface, always visible, and it is like that, a brand, and he wears it without guilt. It is a mark of loyalty and ownership for Sweets. He wants to be owned by the Serpents. For Penny, it was an excuse, but now she has none. And Jug - he only wants to be owned by one. He wants to owe no one but her.

 

‘What?’ He pulls his denim jacket closer even though it feels like a boiling stew in the bar. ‘No. This was a favor, Sweet Pea.’

 

He catches the shift in Sweet Pea’s demeanor, away from the boy who plays videogames with Jug while skipping school to the new recruit still proving his mettle, who wears his leather like a blessing and not a burden.

 

In Archie’s bathroom, Jug shrugs out of his clothes, but the movements are painful, a bruise forming on his shoulder from Penny’s elbow. The snake charmer got him good.

 

He takes a hot shower, careful with the soap and the washcloth around the gash in his gut, dabbing carefully at the dried blood. Afterward, he finds Archie’s first aid kit under the sink, well stocked from how often Archie finds himself at the wrong end of the things, sports and fights. Jughead surveys the wound in the mirror, a seven-inch slice across his belly, deeper in the middle, wondering if butterfly bandages are sufficient enough in lieu of stitches. He cleans the wound with isopropyl, dabs some antiseptic around the clotted edges, and uses five bandages for the deepest parts of the cut. He finishes it off by placing a large gauze patch over the entire wound to let it breathe. The remainder only minor cuts and bruises, some soreness from wrestling Penny to the ground. All in all, he is lucky Penny didn’t stab him. He bets she regrets that now, but splashes his face with cold water to rinse himself of the thought, rubbing at the scratches under his chin from her nails.

 

He fills a garbage bag with his clothes and heads downstairs to toss it in the trash to be picked up the next day. It is cold in only a t-shirt and boxers, the concrete nearly burning against his bare feet. He tosses the Hefty into the trash bin and draws his hands up to his mouth to blow on them, watching the warm fog flood from his mouth and over his fingers, instantly recalling the steam rising from the patch of skin he flayed off Penny.

 

He shakes his head, turns back towards the house. _Think about something else, Jones. Think about anything else_. His gaze rises to the girl next door, the warm glow from her bedroom window. She is still awake, only a hundred feet away, reachable if only he could find the ladder in the dormant hedges under her window but Alice Cooper locked it up in the garage. He curls his toes against the icy pavement, folding his arms tight across his middle to conserve heat, hoping for just a glimpse, one image he can take with him into sleep where he knows his nightmares are waiting, a good luck charm to fend them off.

 

A flash of blonde, the curve of her shoulder partway in the frame, and he moves up the path to the Andrews house to get a better look. Her shell pink sweater, fuzzy and soft on the outside and the inside, something he knows now, something he has felt himself.

 

Ponytail in place, she paces across the window, flutters back. He watches the fretful flip of her ponytail, longs to curl it up in his hand, keep her still, feels that smooth spiral in his hands as she rocked against him in his trailer that afternoon, until something stops her. Someone stops her. That horribly familiar rooster top, Archie’s hands replacing his own as they smooth over her shoulders and down her arms, the privilege of feeling that cashmere soft across his palms.

 

Jughead braces for impact, swallowing, forcing himself not to blink from the cold. As if preordained, getting his due, Archie’s lips against Betty’s, a brief trial kiss, and then Archie moves closer, slides his mouth over Betty’s, prompting something more, reaching for more as the redhead’s hand rises to Betty’s ponytail. And Betty doesn’t move away. Betty doesn’t move away. Betty doesn’t move away.

 

 _Maybe we can walk it back_ , she said _._ Blood still under his fingernails, he grinds his palms against his eyes, gritting his teeth, trying to unsee it all. He keeps hearing it in his periphery, a sickening but tactile sound, skin stripping away with the blade, so much blood, and Archie and Betty kissing in her bedroom window.

 

It’s too late. Staring up at that green light and Archie and Betty kissing, he needs to give up. He needs to let her go. Penny was right. He is in too deep. It’s too late for him.

  

* * *

 

 

**December 2017**

**Jughead**

**Dazed and Confused by Jake Holmes**

 

 _New jeans_ , he thinks, because the water is partially blue in its milkiness. His body sprawled in only a few inches of it because the drains clogged. Why there is standing water is beyond Jughead, but maybe he accidentally kicked the faucet knob, a knee jerk reaction to the overload of white tiger flooding his veins, initiating a steady drip that eventually made a puddle. Jughead rubs his forehead against the door jamb, considers tightening the faucet knob, but the more rational and self-preserving parts of his brain work on autopilot to keep him from putting his hands all over the scene.

 

He smells shit and piss and the vomit leaking from the corner of Mustang’s mouth, dripping across his shoulder and the chest pocket of his leather vest. Jughead presses his bandana to his face, pushes himself off the door jamb and back into the single room at the Last Resort hostel.

 

The door was closed but unlocked. Maybe Mustang hoped someone would find him like this, maybe Jughead, probably Tall Boy, perhaps the poor junkie neighbor Pinto. Jughead didn’t spot any other paraphernalia besides the needle in Mustang’s arm and the belt loose around his upper arm. Perhaps Pinto already made a stop, filched the stash, left the body for a fix.

 

His hand fumbles for his phone, failing to make eye contact with Betty’s smiling face on the home screen when his thumb beelines for the contacts app, pulling up Tall Boy’s info. While the phone rings, Jughead closes the front door, locks it just in case Pinto makes another round for any leftovers or another neighbor, the front desk clerk deciding to drop by looking for late rent payments.

 

Tall Boy answers on the fourth ring. “Jones.”

 

“I found him.”

 

“Where?”

 

“Last Resort.” Jughead doesn’t specify past that. Tall Boy will know. “We’ll need a clean-up crew.”

 

“Understood,” Tall Boy confirms. “Give us an hour. Does anyone know? Cops?”

 

“No cops.” Maybe the junkie next door, but Jughead suspects he will be high for the next few hours. He should check anyway, a wellness check just to make sure the kid is on the nod.

 

“Sit tight. We’ll call if something changes.” Without waiting for an acknowledgment from Jughead, the end of the call is an unarguable click in his ear.

 

Jug glances back at the bathroom, sees Mustang’s leg limp hanging over the lip of the tub. He unlocks the front door and checks both ends of the hallway. Across the hall, a couple yells at each other through the thin plywood door. Jug waits a beat to see if one storms off. By the subject matter, they both seem invested in the argument. He hears cabinets slamming, a skidding chair. The front door remains closed.

 

As he closes Mustang’s door behind him, he considers paying the clerk to find Pinto’s room, but the kid might be close. He could be on a different floor. He might not even be in the hostel anymore. But, Jug doesn’t end up having to go too far. Pinto is in the next room on the right, three open inches between the door and the jamb. No matter the town, Jughead remembers, few people lock their doors on the wrong side of the tracks, especially not dope fiends with a fix in their hands.

 

Starfished across his bed, Pinto’s head lolls toward the door, bush-baby eyes unfocused as he tries to make out the figure in his doorway. “May I have my cigarettes please, Nurse Ratched?” He barters, curling away from Jughead into a fetal position, giggling to himself.

 

Jughead smiles at the reference, fiddles with the pack of Red Apples in the inner pocket of his jacket. He decides to leave Pinto a few cigarettes to pass the time while he rides the white dragon, setting them on the nightstand next to the leather case the junkie stole from Mustang, the little bag of china white, the used needle and scorch marks licking up the bowl of a repurposed baby spoon. He makes sure the door is closed all the way when he leaves, slipping back into Mustang’s room, locking and chaining the door.

 

Sitting on the bed, Jughead smokes a cigarette while he waits for Tall Boy and the cleanup crew. He glances about the room. The mini-fridge in the corner makes his stomach cramp, but the cigarette holds his appetite in check. The smoke helps cover up the smell of the body in the bathroom, dulls his senses. He exhales, taps the ash off onto the carpet littered with cigarette burns and patches worn and fraying from too many boot heels. It reminds him of the carpet in his trailer, and he sucks at the cigarette with a little more fervor, scratching his cheek, gaze skirting to the leg hanging over the edge of the tub, same as he left it.

 

His eyes lose focus on the leg, shifting, fixating on the wrapped present on top of the television. Through his exhale, he can barely make out the single circular panel of Family Circus and the tail end of a Marmaduke strip on the frontward face of the present. He stands up and steps towards the television, a CRT model from the days of the first Bush. The note pinned to the present is another blank receipt from the diner on rural route 18.

 

Maybe Mustang tried to call Mia back to the diner to give it to her, but when Jughead reads the note, he realizes it is for him, brief instructions for Jughead to get the present to Mia and Mustang’s confession that he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do follow through, so he places the onus on Jughead. Jughead inhales, the last drag, holds it for a beat, and exhales, “Asshole.” He puts the cigarette out on the television stand, pockets the butt. “Fuck you, Mustang.”

 

Completing an about-face, he surveys the rest of the room, drops to his stomach like an air-raid drill and checks under the bed. He knows Mustang has money stashed somewhere, maybe in this room, probably in this room. Nothing under the bed.

 

He rummages the set of drawers, checks the mini-fridge, cracks a can of Coke to help pass the time. There aren’t too many hidey holes in a single room, Jug reasons, his gaze skirting the ceiling tiles while he sucks at the foam on the lip of the soda can. Studying each water stain and puncture wound in the tiles, he walks the edge of the room, searching for an inconsistency, a tell. _You’re not a smart man, Mustang. You’re not a planner. You’re impulsive,_ Jughead thinks to himself. The body in the tub is proof enough of that, the hasty scribble on the diner receipt, the unlocked door.

 

Jughead slips back into the bathroom, keeping as much distance between himself and the body. He places his soda on the counter and grabs the wooden handle of the toilet plunger, stepping on the rubber end and yanking up to dislodge the handle. He grabs his soda and reenters the living room, starts poking ceiling tiles with the handle of the toilet plunger. Pops them up like a game of whack-a-mole until the end of the handle meets something substantially more solid.  

 

Jughead kills the Coke and sets the empty can on the television stand, reminding himself to grab it before he leaves. He uses one of the chairs, like the ones found in waiting rooms at budget clinics, to remove the adjacent ceiling tile. Jughead reaches up into the ceiling space, his fingers passing over smooth leather. He tugs the duffle down, careful with its heft as he lowers it onto the television stand next to Mia’s present.

 

Jug shakes his head at the embossed initials on the metal plate, _H.L._ “You dumb fucking bastard.” He pops the magnetic clips on the top, comes face-to-face with more money than he has ever seen in one place, fresh-looking Franklins and Jacksons wrapped in yellow and green currency bands.

 

It is more money than he could ever hope to make in twenty years at the Twilight. It could pay off Fred’s medical bills, his, buy the trailer land outright. _How much fucking work did you do for the Lodges, Mustang?_

 

He could take it all. But then he remembers it isn’t all Lodge money. Some of it was stolen from the Serpents, but it isn’t like there are big letter _Ls_ on the bands to let him know which is which. Piled like this, it’s all the same anyway, dirty money. He snaps the duffle closed, exhales shaky as he leaves every dollar untouched. _Yeah, at least you’re an honest criminal, Jones, chip off the old fucking block_ , his father ridicules him inside his head.

 

Someone knocks on the front door and Jug jolts upright clutching the duffle to his chest. “Housekeeping!” He looks at the windows lining the wall on his right side, wonders how far down the drop is to the alley behind the hostel. “Come on, Jones, open the fucking door.” Sweet Pea.

 

He opens the door. The chain catching, he peeks out at Sweet Pea and Tall Boy standing in the hallway. A dish breaks against the front door behind them. Neither flinch. Then it is a body up against the neighbor’s door, another joining, a struggle against the flimsy particle board, and Jughead thinks maybe there will be another dead body in the Last Resort, a third if Pinto doesn’t make it through the night. He thinks this until he hears strained _I love yous_ , bodies moving roughly to the ground, an elbow or a knee striking the door. _I fucking love you_.

 

Sweet Pea slaps his palm against Mustang’s door right by Jug’s face, the chain straining. “Thumbs up our ass, Jones?”

 

Jug shuts the door quietly, unlatches the chain. Sweet Pea barely waits for him to open the door all the way before he shoulders by, lugging a white plastic gallon bucket and a blue Coleman tarpaulin. Sweets glances around the room for the body, looks back at Jughead for a clue, and Jug nods at the bathroom. When Sweets moves towards it, Jughead spots the yellow cleaning gloves sticking out from his back pocket.

 

“Oh good, he’s already in the tub. Thank god for small favors, right, Jones,” Tall Boy comments, clapping him on the shoulder. “So, did you kill him?

 

Jug flinches away, rubs his lower back where the gun chafes against his lumbar. “What? No.”

 

“Because we didn’t ask you to do that,” Tall Boy clarifies. “Not that I’m complaining.” Because it was coming down the road regardless. Sweets yells from the bathroom, _stupid fucking junkie took care of himself,_ and Tall Boy tells him to _keep your fucking voice down._

 

He sees the duffle hanging heavy from Jughead’s arm. “Well, what do we have here? You mind?” He asks, reaching out to take it. Jughead swings it towards Tall Boy, lets the older man open it on the television stand. He notes the empty soda can and asks Jughead if there are any left. Jughead retrieves him a fresh Coke while Tall Boy pops the tabs on the duffle. “We were looking for this, too. Good work, Jones,” he says, thumbing through the cash. He accepts the soda without thanks.

 

Jughead hears trickling coming from the bathroom, glances through the open door to see Sweet Pea taking a piss next to Mustang’s dead body. Tapping the top of his soda can, Tall Boy snaps at Sweet Pea. “Really, boy?”

 

“It was a long ride from Riverdale,” Sweets argues, shrugging, jiggling his hips before tucking himself back into his jeans.

 

“Remember to flush, dumbass,” Tall Boy prompts, and Sweet Pea gives him a condescending look as he presses one finger on the toilet handle, sending his presence down the drain.

 

Tall Boy sips his Coke, turns his attention back to Jughead as Sweet Pea surreptitiously flips him the bird. “We’ll take it from here, kid.” Jughead glances at the present on the other end of the television stand. Tall Boy follows his gaze.

 

“I could give it to her aunt with a forged letter,” Jughead explains quickly. “Say he won’t be coming back. That way no one will suspect.” He thinks he owes Mia at least a farce.

 

Tall Boy considers it, takes a healthy swallow of Coke before belching. “That’s a good touch. That’s why we keep you around, Jones. Always thinking one step ahead.” He turns back to the open duffle of cash, takes out a couple of stacks. “Here.”

 

“What?”

 

“For your services, kid. Unless you already lifted a few?” Tall Boy regards him quietly, flicks at the tab of his soda can, until he laughs short, smacks Jughead lightly on the cheek with a bundle of hundreds. “Jesus, don’t look so shocked, Jones. How do you think you keep your trailer? How do you think your daddy did? We all gotta do things we’re not proud of to keep the heat on, boy. Just take the money and go home.” _One more favor,_ Jug thinks, feeling the weight of the banded bills, hears Sweet Pea call from the bathroom about his cut.

 

“What about Mia?”

 

“What about her?” Tall Boy gives him a look.  

 

Jughead swallows some shame, reasons that maybe, “Shouldn’t she get some of that money?”

 

Sweets pokes his head out from the bathroom wearing the yellow gloves. “Her dead dad’s snitch money? I don’t think so.”

 

But Tall Boy hands Jughead an additional strap of the twenties. “No, that’s a good idea. Tell her to keep quiet.”

 

* * *

 

 

**December 2016**

**Betty**

**Exits by Foals**

Veronica flashes a disapproving look at Archie’s moon eyes before dragging Betty a few body lengths from the puppy-faced redhead. Betty glances across the hall to spy Jughead rounding the corner towards his locker, senses numbed by the headphones covering his ears, staring at the repeating Riverdale High insignias on the linoleum, his hands stuffed inside his jacket pockets. In its blindly honest pursuit of Veronica, Archie’s yearning burns a hole in the back of Betty’s head while her own chest gets tighter and tighter the closer Jughead gets to his locker, incidentally only a locker-block away from her own. He might actually show up to biology today, and then maybe she can commandeer him as a lab partner. Maybe she can drag her preferred sleuthing partner into her investigation to find the Hood and avoid any more spur-of-the-moment kisses from Archie. She needs a mental jumpstart right now, and her metaphorical cables are within a hop, skip, and a jump. The Hood is so close, and Jughead is closer.

 

Clutching her backpack straps and feeling the edges of Veronica’s plum nails through her cream sweater, everything seems to come full circle for Betty. The roundabout of all their emotions makes the hallway tilt dangerously, and Betty leans into the block of lockers to survive the feeling of capsizing in the rocking sea of Archie’s confused longing, Veronica’s ambitions conflicting with her affections, and Jughead’s quiet animosity, something he usually reserves for all the others now directed towards the three of them standing at the other end of the hall.

 

“The St. Claires are pulling out of their investment,” Veronica informs her, and Betty can hear the accusatory inflection, feel it in the points of her nails dark purple like fresh bruises. “Nick has gone missing.” Jughead slams his locker, and it feels like Betty’s head gets caught in the motion, like someone flipped the switch, and Betty, beatific pink and obliging, goes dark. “Betty, you didn’t tell anyone?”

 

“No,” she lies quickly.

 

Jughead adjusts his messenger bag, presses his headphones closer to his ears. Worn out from Veronica’s silent treatment, Archie abandons them both to approach Jughead. Betty watches, gauges the look on Jug’s face, catalogs the progression of emotions that filter through his features – wariness, irritation, a barely concealed flicker of rage at something Archie says while glancing back at Veronica and Betty.

 

Veronica releases her upper arm, and Betty wonder-wishes if those bruised nails left a similar mark. “God, Betty, it could be my dad. I don’t know if my mom said something, but it could be him.”

 

“It could be anybody,” Betty reasons, more with herself, but then amends it with something probably closer to the truth. “It could be the Hood.”

 

“You don’t understand, Betty, the St. Claires are part of the mob, and if they think my parents had anything to do with Nick’s disappearance, they could come after us.” Veronica tries to convey the sense of urgency, but Betty feels like she hears everything backwards, like someone is spinning her record in reverse. Jughead is staring at her from across the hallway while Archie talks, and a cold wash of fear bleeds through her limbs, wondering what the hell Archie is blabbering on about to his roommate, foster brother, best friend, her best friend. Veronica grabs Betty’s hands, tugs back her attention. “Please, promise me you didn’t breathe a word to anyone. No one knows about it besides you and my mom.”

 

Betty swears she didn’t tell anyone, which is true. She didn’t confess Nick’s sins to the Hood, but she is certain he got them from the self-entitled jag his own way.

 

“Maybe he is just on a bender. It wouldn’t be the first time,” Veronica rationalizes, comforting herself while Betty fails spectacularly. There’s no proof, no body. Betty wonders if this absolves her somehow when Jughead shoulders past Archie towards Dr. Phylum’s classroom, feels a little flutter of hope that he steps right over as he makes a sharp right into another hallway.

 

* * *

 

 

“Wouldn’t it be so much less complicated if it were just you and me?” Archie wonders quietly, rehashing their earlier argument while they sift through old Cooper family photo albums. Her mother passes by with a tray of tea and cookies, comments on their sentimentality, how apt it seems by the lights of the Christmas tree, the cozy fire, the living room where the Andrews and Coopers held joint Christmas Eves in years past. After waxing negative about Archie’s faults for most of Betty’s sophomore year, her mother warms to the idea of reviving the Archie and Betty show. Comparatively, her mother must assume he is the lesser of two evils.

 

Earlier in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner, her mother leaned over to whisper how Betty was much more age appropriate than Archie’s last fling. Blanching, Betty wondered if Jughead would make a side joke about revamping the Archie and Betty show for cable. A side joke, she muses, while she feels like Archie’s side show because wasn’t it always the Archie and Betty show. Betty always came second. So many times she came last. She wanted to tell her mother she was only playing the game, but it confuses Archie, predictably.

 

She only needed someone for a little footwork and Archie was the best candidate. And she did it maybe because he needed the distraction, too, from his father, from Veronica, but she did not anticipate his eyes turning on her. She wanted a façade for the Hood, but then she forgets nuance is not Archie’s forte, and when he has girl troubles, he latches onto the next best thing. Yes, Betty is well versed on being the backup choice. She doesn’t know how to say this to him now without hurting his feelings further. He’s been playing the good kicked puppy ever since she took him up on this investigation.

 

“Archie,” Betty chides gently, flipping another carefully labeled page in one of her father’s older albums. “We have more important things to think about.” Like finding this bastard before he pulls another name from Betty or worse.

 

“Everything’s so complicated, everyone,” Archie starts rapping, flipping the pages of his photo album but not really looking, frustrating Betty because she will have to double check his work. It won’t be the first time. While she massacred his _Blue and Gold_ drafts, Jug was never a sloppy investigator. He at least took this seriously, and Betty nearly feels mean enough to remind Archie his dad’s wellbeing is on the line, too. “But you and I, we’ve never been complicated. You and I, it’s easy between us. Don’t you think?”

 

Easier. He wants it easy, of course, Betty thinks. It is the exact last reason they should ever end up together. Between Archie and herself, she can agree there is the effortless kind of subconscious intuition that only comes when two people grow up together, but it was something she had with Jughead as well, even if she didn’t recognize it until late. And with Jughead there is more, more than that superficial bubblegum vision she had of Archie at the beginning of the school year.

 

Every time Betty looks at Archie hoping for the click of understanding, connection, yet all she gets in return is a confused but friendly and sheepish smile. She wants to say it was only a few kisses, heat of the moment kisses, anxiety kisses. With Mr. Svenson’s finger between them, they were basic life or death kisses. Meaningless after the fact, probably. At least for her. He touched her, kissed her then, and it was comforting to some extent, but empty of those little addictive additions, the visceral tugging, that swoop of her gut she would get when Jughead kissed her. Archie doesn’t kiss her like he wants her.

 

 _But I don’t want you_ , an unimpeachable instinct in her head. It just isn’t there. _I don’t love you. I love Jughead_. Oh no. Betty stares intently at the group photo from the last Cooper barbeque with her paternal grandparents when she was five years old. She barely remembers her grand-pappy, and she remembers her grand-mamma less. “I thought you were in love with Veronica,” she argues, hoping to set him back on the path. It always worked before, a simple reminder.

 

“She doesn’t love me.” In a rare moment of self-reflection, Archie wonders why he keeps doing this to himself, going to emotionally unavailable women, women who can’t be all in. “But you, Betty, you’re always all in, right?”

 

More than she knows, feeling the _love you_ reverberating through her head from the night of the time-out, feeling its weight ricocheting, more substantial and genuine than she knew at the time she first felt it. She would subject herself to psychopathic manipulation to keep him safe. “You love me,” Archie claims. As if her confession from the start of the year still holds water, and it does.

 

Betty tries not to roll her eyes, placing a comforting hand on Archie’s. It feels patronizing even to her. “Not like that,” Betty clarifies. _Not ever_ , she thinks. “You love Veronica.” _And you’re kissing me. You’re so stupid, Archie._ “Archie, backburner. We have to find Mr. Svenson.” Before the Hood finishes what he started nearly three decades ago.

 

Archie turns the page, again barely studying the photographs, and Betty slips her hand between the laminated covers, stopping him. “Wait, Arch.” She remembers this photo. Her dad told her it was a community day when he was a little kid, when a bunch of Riverdale fathers decided to plant trees in Pickens Park. When she was young and her father showed her this photo the first time, she took it at face value and carried on, but now she spots no newly planted trees in the image, a group of young men leaning against their shovels over soft ground. “This is it.” Nana Blossom stressed the grasp of the devil’s hand, her arthritis-ridden claw quivering mid-air, and Betty sees it there balanced above the young men in the photo, an angry clutching at the sepia-gray sky.

 

Archie checks for his keys in his letterman jacket. “We’ll call Sheriff Keller on the way. Come on,” he says, shoving the photo albums at the foot of the Cooper hearth and helping Betty stand.

 

* * *

 

 

**December 2016**

**Jughead**

**Cannibal’s Hymn by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds**

 

He checks the time on the wall clock above the trailer door. Again. Visiting hours start in a little over an hour.

 

It has gotten easier at school. He is back to blending into the madding crowd, stuffing his ears inside oversized headphones and counting the tiles engraved with Riverdale insignias. No one bothers him now that the collective focus is on the Black Hood murders, almost all only attempted now.

 

The guy is so bad at this, Jug thinks dryly, dipping one finger into his coffee mug, finding it tepid. He stands up for a refill, but the pot is empty, too. It’s as good a cue as any that he needs to be on his bike and heading for Shankshaw. He dumps the coffee in the sink, watches all that lukewarm black filter down the drain and wishes he had more to eat than Folger’s in a can.

 

As he reaches for the keys on the hook, his eyes skim the leather jacket in his periphery. When his father wore it, the visceral redlining was catching, just a flash he could never be sure of until he looked close enough. He never spotted another Serpent with that red. The red was telling, that his father would bleed for the Serpents, that he had. Jughead surmised it was also a designation of some sort, something symbolic, that marked his father above the rest, but it always felt like a warning. Most of the time it was hidden, but his father would move a certain way, raise his arms to stretch, check his pockets for a light, and then there would be that flash of red, a less than friendly reminder, like a threat, like there was always something else underneath that reminded Jughead his father was not a kind man.

 

He folds his arms across his chest, flipping the motorcycle keys around his index finger. He holds a staring contest with his father’s jacket and loses.

 

Jug lifts the jacket off the hook, feels the weight of the black leather. It hasn’t been oiled in a while and some of the joints are threatening to crack. The red interior is liquid soft but coming away from the seams in certain areas. He can fit his hand inside the lining at the left armpit.

 

If he did wear it, was there some Serpent leather worker that would repair it for him? If he joined the Serpents, was he required to only consult with Serpent-approved businesses? He snorts, pulls his hand from the lining. He always found it oddly backwards that a criminal organization could have so many made-up laws rivaling the number of common laws, as if they devised a gang-specific edict as a counterargument for every perceived slight from the legal side of the law. But it was true that the Southside felt forgotten by the ‘right’ side of the law, and in many instances outright targeted to fill quotas, to keep the ‘vagrants’ and ‘miscreants’ in check. He couldn’t fault the Serpents for circling the wagons.

 

But would it even fit him? He bypasses his denim jacket to grab his father’s, shrugs the leather across his back, tugs the sleeves down, stuffs some of the red lining back inside the cuffs. _Like a glove, junior_.

 

Betty’s voice behind his father’s, _are you going to join the Serpents?_ He lets the jacket slide off his shoulders and throws it back on the hook, like if he wore it any longer it would fuse with his skin.

 

Jughead pulls the denim from the adjacent hook, his much more innocuous second skin, tugs the sherpa lapels closer to his collar. He looks at himself in the tiny mirror by the side of the door, same beanie, same flannel, same jacket, a slave to routine and tradition, and then he checks his pockets, his fingers brushing against the tortoise shell handle of Penny’s switchblade. The snake emblem on the back of his father’s jacket seems to strike out at him.

 

He feels Archie’s hand on his shoulder earlier in school, thinking briefly that he should start showing up for biology before he fails. Archie’s thumb glides over the fuzzy sherpa, his reasoning that Betty only wanted some distance. ‘She didn’t tell you to leave home, Jughead.’ He flinched his shoulder away from his best friend, a quick jerk that Archie could feel against his hand, and Jughead watched the confusion spreading across the redhead’s face trying to recall the last time Jug balked from a friendly shoulder squeeze. Jughead only ever allowed a select handful of people touch him – Archie, Betty, and maybe Fred Andrews.

 

He felt Betty’s eyes on him from behind Archie, felt her hands grabbing at this same jacket that afternoon in her bedroom when she asked for space, her hand on his cheek that night in Pop’s when he wondered if they could walk it back, and then Archie’s concerned face in front of him collided with her questioning gaze down the hall in that last image of the two of them kissing in Betty’s bedroom, and he took a purposeful step away from his best friend, feeling Archie’s hand slide from his shoulder with the retreating movement because all he could think about was trying not to cold-cock his best friend in the face in the middle of the hallway at school. It took everything in him not to punch Archie in his unmeaning, naïve fucking face when he found she was talking to Archie, that she told Archie, talking to Archie and not him, investigating with Archie and not him. He started to feel crazy there in the hallway, bracketed on either side by the silent locker-blocks and the students moving around them like so much snow on late-night television.

 

He flips the motorcycle keys again, again, see a tuft of red poking out from the sleeve of his father’s leather jacket. _You were playacting detective anyway, Jones_. It was never really about catching the bad guy. It was always about her.

 

* * *

 

 

His father hugs him as an excuse to whisper in his ear, “Well, you didn’t kill her.” He pats Jug on the shoulder like a job well done, and it feels like his father is holding a brick as he strikes him stiffly and low on the shoulder, smacking his kidney on the last ‘friendly’ pat. Jughead tightens his gut against the blow, glances at the guards by the door as his father takes a seat at the corner table.

 

“What? Were you expecting me to?” He asks when he takes a seat across from FP. He hasn’t seen his father with a full beard since he was in elementary school. Five o’clock shadow, sure, a little grizzled, but never full lumberjack, and it is getting there. Jug wonders if he is cultivating a more hardened look or only passing the time or if he just stopped caring. He wants to ask, make small talk, but maybe the answer won’t be light and funny. _I just wanted to see if it would come in okay, not patchy like last time._ But the reply might run more along the lines of _its bite-you-in-the-ass cold in my cell_ or _no shavers_ or _I’m trying not to get stabbed_.

 

FP scratches at his beard like he knows Jughead is thinking about it. “Let’s just say I was curious, but what you did, it’s still short term. She might come back.” Like it was a test, how screwed up he thought Jug was, must be, given everything else. He wonders exactly what FP knows, what Tall Boy filtered through over the prison phone.

 

“The Serpents won’t take her,” Jug argues, sure Tall Boy wouldn’t allow it.

 

FP snorts, making Jughead feel five-years-old again, like a dumb kid. “And she’ll come back for them?”

 

“I thought you didn’t want me doing this stuff,” Jug says, gesturing at the subject hovering between them, a prophetic aura of Jones hard luck, their legacies forever lost behind the eight ball.

 

“I didn’t want to get thrown in jail, Jug, but lo and behold,” his father reasons, throwing a gesture of his own, a wave of his hand at the visiting room around him, the scattering of somber faces murmuring with quiet familiarity, stolid rocks for guards covering for calculating eyes that scan for any shifty behavior, a scuffing shoe, a hidden hand. “I can’t do my job from here, but I got your eyes and ears on the ground, don’t I? Can I trust you?”

 

“I’m done.”

 

FP sighs, annoyed but unsurprised with his answer. “Yeah, Jug, you and I share something a little more complicated than a bond as simple as father and son, don’t we?” He skims his fingernails across his bearded cheek, a scratchy visceral sound that reminds Jughead of Penny’s skin stripping away with the blade, makes him feel nauseated. “Right, boy?”

 

* * *

 

 

The mallet strikes the concrete, hits rebar, and the blow reverberates through his arms, bone-shaking and satisfying. He brings the mallet back around even though his knuckles and wrists ache, knocking off another chunk of concrete.

 

He is off the clock. No one is going to notice anyway.

 

It didn’t sound like extortion but it sure felt like it, he thinks as he brings the mallet over his head again. It sounded closer to payback, something resentful, bitter behind his father’s words. Jughead shatters another chunk of concrete, imagining a fraction of his debt fracturing on the ground. He looks at the rest of the broken foundation piled ahead of him, a veritable sea of concrete IOUs, wonders how long it would take him to break it all down. Another whack and crack of the mallet.

 

He wipes the sweat off the tip of his nose, his chin, gathers his shirt front to mop up the rest of his face, feels the smooth acrylic _S_ against his cheek when his phone buzzes. He tosses the mallet on top of the wheelbarrow where he found it. It’s the property management office from Sunnyside. “Mr. Jones, we’re returning your call about the walkthrough and the deposit, but we’re a little confused.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Well, you’re paid through February. Is there a mistake?”

 

Maybe, he thinks. “Do you know who paid it?” He wonders if he should just take advantage of it anyway. Let someone unknowingly pay the rent on the trailer at the expense of their own lot.

 

“Yes, I have the name on file. It was a Gerald Petite. Is this correct?” Tall Boy.

 

“Yeah, he’s my uncle,” he lies. “I guess maybe it’s an early Christmas present.”

 

“That’s a very generous gift, Mr. Jones. You’re lucky to have family that cares so much about you.” _So fucking lucky, junior_. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Jones.”

 

* * *

 

 

He kisses Toni as a distraction. He thinks _maybe_ while his eyes are closed but _no_ when he opens them again. She looks like she understands. “Yeah, me too, Jones.”

 

He gets up to go, checks his pockets, makes sure his hat is on top of his head. She thinks he is nervous, uncomfortable, but really he is just tired, dissatisfied, thinking about other things, other girls, girl.

 

“You can still sleep here,” she assures him, glancing at the sofa, the spare pillow and the old quilt piled on top. His trailer still has no water and no heat. He needs to come up with a hundred dollars just to have the heat on again. Maybe next paycheck. He really doesn’t want to go back to the Andrews.

 

“No,” he starts, feels it comes out a little too harshly. “No, it’s fine. I’ll see you later.”

 

“Sure.”

 

* * *

 

 

He waits for her to appear in the window, his favorite doll in the perfect pastel dream-house. So many windows are dark now. Her mother reads alone in the living room by the light of a single floor lamp. He can smell the smoke coming from the Cooper chimney.

 

No one is perfect, he reminds himself, watching Alice Cooper read by herself. His eyes flicker back up to her bedroom window. _But you are_. He just wants to see her, even if it is something mundane. Nothing she does ever bores him – brushing her hair, writing in her diary, flirt texting the redhead across the side yard, anything. She is his favorite study and always will be, framed within that pretense of safety, the controlled environment through the windows to the Cooper home where he can watch her carefully.

 

He hasn’t done this in a while, not since before she asked for space. And not really since the beginning of the school year. Spending as much time with her as he had, he hadn’t felt the urge. He had her; he could see her, talk to her, touch her. He didn’t need to study her from afar when she was right under the glass in his hands, but now here he is, back in the treehouse. Back to his bad habits.

 

He wonders if he is as bad as Frederick Clegg, but promises himself, assures himself he would never put Betty into an actual box. Things die in boxes, the collector knows, and they don’t all stay pretty like a butterfly in a box. The thought of Betty dead in a box makes him grind his teeth, and he lets his nails trace the crown, their initials in the wood, to comfort himself.

 

He feels safe here within the confines of his fantasies, their carefully constructed boundaries. He can be with her here.

 

Perhaps she is already asleep, he speculates. It is early for her. Perhaps she isn’t home. Neither is Archie. Connecting those horrible dots in his head, tab A into slot B, he throws up a little in his mouth. If Archie isn’t home, maybe he can catch a few hours of sleep before the redhead creeps back into his room, maybe smelling vaguely of vanilla with a smear of peach gloss on his cheek. Jughead worries he will fall asleep, deeply asleep, and wake up with his hands wrapped around Archie’s neck.

 

Perhaps she is asleep, her mother keeping watch downstairs.

 

The ladder is in the garage. He knows they keep a spare key under one of the pots her mother uses for spring violets. He could get to her. He could get the ladder, climb that easily conquerable distance between the lawn and her bedroom window. He imagines her window is unlocked. What reason would she have to lock her window on the second floor. He could just get the ladder. If the key wasn’t there, he could knock out one of the glass panels on the side door, unlock it himself. He could do it.

 

He flattens his palm over the crown etched into their treehouse, old wood, needs refinishing like her windowsill, his fingers curling over the edges as he slithers into her bedroom. He could get the ladder, climb up to her bedroom window, jimmy it open with the hunting knife, slide inside real quiet. Her mother would never know. She wouldn’t know until he was in her bed.

 

Would she push him out? Would she dig her nails instead? Could he say, _do that to me so you don’t do it to yourself._ Would she scream? He could slot his hand over her mouth, feel her bite down. His jeans feel tight and he palms himself through the denim, watching her bedroom window, imagines himself asking her if it feels too fast now. His free hand would slide down her body, slip under her sleep shorts, no panties, no barriers as she closes her thighs around his hand. He wonders if her pussy smells like her, just showered and the vanilla soap still fresh on her skin, if it tastes like it, like her peach gloss, like the strawberries at Pop’s, like her, always a little sweet, clean and sweet. Would she push him away or gasp against the bite marks in the meat of his thumb, _faster._

 

He wonders when this will stop being enough, when he can no longer stand to be her shadow, when he will no longer be content to just watch.

 

He let things go before. He played his hand, the best friend hand, the third wheel hand, content to watch, support, listen. Then, he got called off the bench, and all bets were off. This brute sense of possession is eating him alive. He only caught a hint of it with Dilton Doiley. Now it dominates his thoughts. He knows what it feels like to feel good, to have her in his hands, to have her allow him to touch her, and now it feels like withdrawal staring at her dark window like a blank face, an unanswered question. He carves his nails into the ‘B’, tracing each curve over and over again.

 

He remembers Dilton Doiley talking about love, how he knew Jughead was in love with Betty Cooper, how it was too obvious to someone like Doiley, and the word didn’t sound right coming out of Dilton’s mouth. It reminded Jughead of a screw stripping, no anchor, no reference point. He wanted to ask Dilton how he knew it was love, but something tells Jughead he would not have liked the answer, given what Doiley knows about how Jug shows his affection for Betty Cooper, his bad habits. Jughead doesn’t have a good reference point either, for love, for knowing it is love, for knowing if it is the right kind of love for Betty. He goes by instinct. He goes by feel. He makes it a study, an investigation, a stakeout, a stalk that he renames passive observation. He doesn’t know if that is what Betty needs or wants. He thinks this while Alice Cooper turns off the light and retreats to bed.

 

Jughead slides across the wooden platform towards the ladder, commencing his retreat as well. He makes it to the last rung of the ladder when someone’s hands tangle up in the back of his denim jacket and wrench him backwards, tossing him across the lawn. He lands flat on his back, all the air leaving his lungs in a jolt. And then there is a boot in his gut. The knife wound from Penny is still relatively fresh, and he is pretty sure the boot heel just split the butterfly bandages on his belly. The leg reels back again, and he sees it coming, takes the kick, latches on to the leg to keep it from kicking him again. Trying to catch his breath and failing, it gives him time to look up into the empty sockets of the Black Hood. _Shit, I’m going to die_.

 

The Hood lands a punch on the side of his face, and Jughead loses sentience for a moment. He comes back to find his face is wet, grass against his cheek, obscuring his left eye and he remembers that first scene of _Blue Velvet_ , a weird thought as knees close in on either side of his body, a shadow looming and blocking out the security lights on the side of the Andrews garage. As hands close around his neck, he wonders if all that will be left of him is an ear on the grassy side lawn between the Andrews and Coopers.

 

He expects some words, some explanation for what is about to happen, what is happening. Like _you deserve this, Southside scum_ or _stalkers are sinners_ , something self-righteous and tacky, but the Hood is mute above him, betraying no exertion, no feeling either way as his grip tightens on Jughead’s throat, just blind judgment and swift execution. Jughead thinks wryly he might actually pull this one off, feeling the panic setting in because the Hood manages to cut off circulation to his brain before he really closes his windpipe and that will knock him out faster.

 

Jughead still has one hand free, the other pinned painfully under the Hood’s knee. He digs in his jacket pocket, fingers scrambling for the tortoise shell handle and accidentally opening the blade inside his pocket. It nicks his palm, pokes him through the side, but he gets a proper grip and wrenches it from his pocket. He sticks the Hood in the side of the gut like a pig, and it feels like it, like poking a thick balloon. He wonders if that is all people are, meat balloons with soft fleshy fillings, like Snowden’s secret. _Christ, you have to focus, Jones_.

 

There is a groan, a meanness developing in those voids through the cutout sockets in his hood, but his hold on Jug’s throat loosens when his assailant jerks away from the blade. It gives Jughead the opportunity to shoulder him aside and scramble towards the treehouse. He accidentally kicks off the first step nailed into the trunk, but clambers up the rest of the way, almost dropping the switchblade as he heaves himself up onto the treehouse platform.

 

Jughead lies flat against the platform for a moment, gasping, remembering to breathe. Over the sound of his thudding heartbeat, he listens for the Hood following him up to the treehouse, his hand tightening around the handle of Penny’s switchblade. Nothing. Some scuffing against the grass and another animal groan.

 

When he musters the courage to peek over the platform edge, the Black Hood is gone.

 

* * *

 

  

The next morning, all people can talk about is how Betty and Archie caught the Black Hood, and Sheriff Keller shot him between the eyes on the Sweetwater Bridge. Something tells him the timing is a little off. He is tempted to pay a visit to Dr. Curdle Jr., but he doesn’t have any money. The skeptic in him thinks it is too convenient by half that the Hood would attack him at the Andrews treehouse and then immediately head over to Pickens Park to bury Archie alive while nursing a gut wound from a switchblade. But then, he hears about the severed finger the Black Hood delivered to Betty a week ago and tries to recall if the hands around his neck were missing a digit. He could have sworn all ten fingers were present. He counts the bruises on his throat.

 

His phone buzzes with a text. _Meet me in the Blue and Gold before first period?_ She beats him to the punch. He wasn’t going to talk to her directly, but he did want to know she was alright.

 

* * *

 

 

**December 2016**

**Betty**

**Sweet Bird by Young Hunting**

The next morning Betty wakes up to a winter wonderland floating outside her bedroom window. Still exhausted, she lets sleep drag her eyes closed for a few more moments until she hears her mother shuffling outside her door, eavesdropping before she barrels into scold her daughter for sleeping past seven. Betty reaches for her nightstand, opens and closes a drawer noisily to put her mother off the scent. She isn’t up for the promised round two of her mother’s rant about last night, about Betty and Archie’s recklessness. Really, Betty doesn’t want to watch her mother cry again. At least her father didn’t bawl when he found out what happened, but it wasn’t unusual for him to be the composed one in these situations.

 

Fred Andrews looked like he was on the verge of a heart attack when he came to pick Archie up from the sheriff’s station, seeing his son sitting in the plastic-backed seat looking like he climbed out of his own grave. He did. They both did, in a way.

 

Betty stares at the ceiling of her bedroom. She has to go to school. It would feel normal to do so, and maybe she should, slide back into the effortless rinse and repeat of her compulsory education, let ritual and routine reorient her.

 

But, it isn’t what ultimately gets her out of bed. _Tell me maybe we can walk it back_. She said maybe then without an ounce of certainty. Stranded inside the dregs of her candy flip, she could only nod and admit and hope that it was real, that she wasn’t just daydreaming again. Is it safe now, she wonders. Can she even tell him the right way? She glances at the open diary on her nightstand. She has a little time to organize her thoughts.

 

Betty drags herself from bed to draw the curtains aside, take in the falling snow, the first real snow of the Christmas season, the first that might stick. Break starts after today. Two weeks to recuperate. Two weeks to repair everything, her fractured relationship with her family, her friends, Jughead most of all. After the last few weeks, it feels like all the time in the world.

 

Someone already has a head start, she thinks, spotting Veronica clipping up the steps to the Andrew’s front door. She watches her friend pin a sprig of mistletoe to the porch overhang and practically skip to knock on the door. Archie answers looking bleary-eyed and just as bone-tired as Betty feels. He is still blinking in the morning light as Veronica drags him across the porch, right under the mistletoe. Betty thinks Veronica actually looks nervous for once, embarrassed, until she can practically see Archie’s metaphorical tail wagging erratically, uncontrollably as he sweeps Veronica up, kissing laughing. _How it should be_ , Betty thinks, giving witness to the inevitable culmination of Veronica and Archie.

 

She touches her lips watching Archie kiss Veronica on his front porch. He didn’t kiss her like that. Only one person has ever kissed her like that.

 

It is safe now, she decides. No more secretes, she promises herself.

 

* * *

 

 

At school, she goes looking for Jughead. While tuning out her mother’s lecture on the drive to school, she sent him a quick text asking him to meet her in the _Blue and Gold_. Instead, she finds Veronica waiting for her in the office.

 

“Veronica? What is it? I have a meeting with Jughead.” She wonders if this is about that morning’s confession, nearly admits she saw the whole exchange and put two and two together. Or it is about Archie’s kiss, if the red Labrador already ratted them out. It could be about any number of things, and Betty wills herself to be patient, not jump to conclusions.

 

“Oh, is that back on again?” Veronica wonders, and Betty nearly defends it was never a thing, never public information anyway. Yet, Betty reasons, anyone with half a brain could tell something was wrong between them. Veronica commented a few times in the past week alone how Betty had seemed to have lost her shadow and suggested she sew him on next time.

 

“It’s in the works,” Betty glosses over. “Did you need something specific, V?”

 

Veronica closes the door behind Betty and leads her further into the office. More panic creeps up like bile in Betty’s throat. She tamps down, reasons it is leftovers from the night before. She needs to relax. She needs to be more relaxed before Jughead gets there.

 

"So, I got a call from my mother on the way to school. They just raided Mr. Svenson’s house,” Veronica starts. “And guess what they found?”

 

“I don’t know, V, a collection of heads in the freezer? A kiddie torture porn room in the basement?”

 

Veronica blanches and leans away from Betty. “Jesus, Betty, you need to stop watching crime shows. What are you reading? This is Jughead’s influence, isn’t it? You’re actually a match made in hell, aren’t you?”

 

“Is this important, Veronica?” Betty checks her watch. She doesn’t need to admit to Veronica that she read all the Thomas Harris novels before she was a freshman in high school or that she used to record crime documentaries on their ancient VCR in middle school. If anything, she cultivated Jughead’s interest in criminal justice and investigative journalism. She’s the monster.

 

Veronica suddenly remembers why she cornered Betty in the _Blue and Gold_ , dropping her rag about Betty and Jughead’s morbid fascination with the macabre. “They found Nick’s body in the crawlspace under Mr. Svenson’s house.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I angst, hard. It is my catharsis. I hope this is cathartic for you as well.


	7. night on earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the feedback from last chapter! It pleases me to please you, even if this story is not the lightest read in more than one sense, but I am always intrigued by what you feel and draw from it. 
> 
> Beta-help and writing support kindly and thoughtfully supplied by _heartunsettledsoul_ and _imserpentking_. They enable me and temper me when I need it most, and I appreciate them for it. 
> 
> I wrote all the good parts to this first, and then saved the un-fun parts for last because even I needed a pick-me-up from the doom and gloom of the last few chapters. Also, I'm writing a Christmas fic in June. Things are upside down.

 

**December 2016**

**Betty**

**Flatlands by Chelsea Wolfe**

 

She holds her breath until the tension behind her eyes becomes too much to bear, allows a stilted exhale, a dragging inhale, and the cycle starts all over again. The first bell rings and she curls further inside herself, burrows her face to hide inside the small dark space between her bent knees tucked close to her body. 

 

Five minutes passing without notice, she grips her ankles to keep her nails out of her palms, but somehow they slip into the scars when the tardy bell tolls. Someone runs down the hall to catch a closing door, sneakers squeaking to a noisy stop, peals of laughter cut off by the finality of the pneumatic gears closing the classroom door. Five more minutes of silence pass without notice and then she starts crying. 

 

_ Get up, Betty. _

 

She wills it. Nothing moves the way it should. Her brain sends all the right messages, but it is as if something has locked her in place. If she could just get her body to act on autopilot, she could survive the day. Her muscles move against the rigidity of her elbows, her bent knees, but she cannot get outside of herself. 

 

_ Get up, weakling. _

 

She sobs.

 

_ Don’t pretend it didn’t feel good _ . She beats the heels of her hands into her forehead. 

 

_ Just because it felt good doesn’t make it right _ , she argues back. 

 

_ He was a criminal, the worst kind of man, just like Chuck Clayton. They all deserved it. You did the world a favor.  _

 

She wonders if she likes hating herself, if she has gotten so accustomed to it, this habitual sense of internalized contempt, that she cannot feel normal without it, that it defines her to some extent. Looking at her palms, her self-loathing rooted in her hands, everything keeps breaking. She scrambles to put the pieces back together, to find some sense of stability, safety, surety, but her hopes and aims do nothing but exacerbate, worsen her lot, the lots of others. Jughead would say the path to hell is paved with good-intentions, and she cries harder realizing she broke that, too. She broke them. 

 

_ Your sense of justice is just as twisted as you are.  _

 

Feeling all wrong with the world, she unlocked a part of herself that refuses to go back inside the box. She doesn’t know how to live with it. She doesn’t know if they can exist at the same time.   

 

Her father picks up on the third ring. 

 

Her voice cracks. “Dad.” 

 

“Betty, what is it? Where are you? Are you at school?” 

 

“Can you pick me up?” 

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“No.” She rubs the back of her hand against her forehead. It itches from the tension point winding up behind her eyes. “Please, dad.” Before she starts breaking things again. Before she starts breaking herself. 

 

Nothing comes over the receiver and it feels like minutes pass in silence. She fears he is pausing to think about it, hearing him shuffle something over the phone, papers. “Dad, please.”  _ Please just don’t ask any questions. Please just be my dad and pick me up. Daddy, pick me up. _

 

“Yes, Betty, I’ll be there in ten minutes. Hold tight, sweetheart,” he says quickly, not meaning to pause, not meaning to let her think he would drop her.  And maybe he didn’t pause. She isn’t perceiving time quite right. Everything feels too long and too short at once. “Go to the office right now. Ten minutes, Betty.” 

 

It is the directive she needs. Her body moves, autopilot kicking in. She just needed someone to take control. 

 

In the filmy bathroom mirror, she cleans herself up as best as she can, splashes her face with cold water until her eyes aren’t so puffy, until her skin looks less blotchy. Her movements are mechanical, automated because even if he decided to come get her, it didn’t mean she was allowed to show the world she was flawed, and worse, breakable. She blows her nose into a damp paper towel, checks herself one last time in the mirror, close enough to normal. 

 

On the ride home, she keeps her hands folded in her lap, sweater sleeves pulled down and pinned between her fingers. Leaning her head against the cold passenger window, she exhales against the glass. A circle of fog spreads and recedes with each breath, proof she lives while a boy lies supine and stiff on a coroner’s gurney. 

 

Her father glances at her only once during the short drive, his knuckles white on the gear shift, but he doesn’t say anything. He steers the powder blue Mustang up the Cooper driveway. Her mother isn’t home, to her relief. He looks relieved, too. 

 

Carrying her backpack, he opens the front door for them both, offers to make her some food or pick something up, whatever she wants. “I think I’ll just go to bed, dad.” 

 

“I could bring something up to you later?” He offers, closing the door behind her, locking it. 

 

“I’m not – dad, I just want to go sleep.” 

 

“Okay, sweetheart,” he acquiesces, reaching to place his hand on the back of her head, something so tender in his eyes that it chafes. She ducks away towards the stairs. 

 

On the third step up, she turns, leaning heavy on the banister. “Dad?” 

 

He looks up, shifting her backpack to the other shoulder. “Yes, honey?” He doesn’t look hurt that she pulled away. 

 

“Thank you.” 

 

“Of course, Betty.” 

 

She feels him watching her climb the rest of the stairs. 

 

As she slides under her blankets, there is something comforting about hearing her father flip on the television, the tinny faraway sound of daytime talk shows, distant audiences clapping, cued laughter, and she quickly falls asleep. 

 

* * *

 

**December 2017**

**Betty**

**NOBO by Tijuana Panthers**

Veronica twists the candy red straw between her bruised plum fingers while she watches Paul Sparks wipe down the tables and whistle along to the jukebox. She doesn’t blink when Betty takes a seat across from her, giving Sparks a once-over as he stretches across the table to rearrange the condiment tray. “Do you think Paul Sparks has ever gotten laid?”

“He dated Midge during her thespian phase,” Betty fills in for Veronica, leaving out the part where Midge cheated with Moose Mason for most of her fling with Sparks. Veronica raises her eyebrows at Betty, wondering if dating equated to having sex. In Midge’s case and without prejudice, Betty would bet money on it. She turns in her seat to glance at Paul Sparks returning to the service counter, slinging a wet dishrag over his shoulder and still whistling.

Veronica flags him down. “Excuse me, Paul, can we order?”

Sparks quick-steps over. Betty notes he doesn’t carry an order pad in his apron and it makes her think of Dr. Glass for a moment, a glimmer of fondness. “So, ladies, are we getting anything else besides that shake for Ms. Lodge? How about you, Betty? Strawberry or vanilla today?”

Teasing the straw between her teeth, Veronica smiles up at him through her eyelashes. He doesn’t seem phased when she presses her tongue to the straw, manipulates it against her teeth. Betty wonders what private game Veronica is playing and whether Betty is expected to pick up the rules on her own. She asks him politely for strawberry, and he winks at her before trotting back to the soda counter to fix it for her.

Betty turns back to her friend, nearly snatches the straw from her tricksy mouth. “Are you flirting with Paul Sparks?”

Veronica uses her straw to stir her shake, watching Paul Sparks mix Betty’s strawberry milkshake behind the counter. “Not seriously,” she defends. Because that would be weird, Betty thinks, given Veronica has been dating Archie pretty consistently for the past year. Betty considers reminding her as if maybe it slipped Veronica’s mind. But Veronica is not Archie. She knows what she is doing. Veronica takes a sip of her chocolate shake. “I mean, yeah, a little,” she amends.

Betty gives her a look that screams  _ Archie _ , and Veronica snorts at Betty’s reaction, maybe at herself a little, too. “Betty, calm down,” Veronica starts. “I don’t talk about it. Well, with you, not yet anyway.” Veronica seems to consider something privately to herself, grinding her straw between her teeth. “If I tell you something, do you promise not to be judgy about it?”

“Oh god, please don’t tell me you’ve been cheating on Archie,” Betty groans, ready to drop her face to her hands, unprepared to deal with that secret and the inevitable fallout to follow. Veronica purses her lips at her, giving her a definitive  _ that’s judgment, Betty _ look. “Okay, no, no judgment.”

“I love how you automatically jump to me cheating on Archie since I’m pretty sure if the entire student body at Riverdale High bet dollars to donuts who would be the cheater in our relationship, Archie would win by a landslide,” Veronica argues, and Betty defends that she was  _ just  _ practically eye-fucking Paul Sparks. “It’s been a thing for a while, but sometimes Archie and I like to have our own solo adventures outside the relationship. And we’ve been talking about adding someone to the mix.”

“You think Paul Sparks would be the key ingredient?” Betty asks, incredulous.

They both hush when Sparks returns and slides Betty her strawberry milkshake. He kneels next to the booth and offers her an unopened straw as if offering her his life. “My lady.”

“Thank you, Paul,” Betty acknowledges, accepting the straw and his thousand-watt smile that might rival Archie’s at his best. It even seems as genuine. Betty thinks that would be too much energy in one bedroom.

“You ladies holler if you need anything else. I’ll be at the counter,” he says, jabbing his thumb behind him as he rises from the undoubtedly filthy diner floor. She can see the look in Veronica’s eyes that there is a boy who doesn’t mind getting himself dirty to provide exceptional service. The brunette waves him off.

Turning back to Betty, Veronica taps her index finger on the tabletop like she is pointing to the law that Betty just broke, the penalty underneath. “Don’t give me that look. That’s a judgy look. I don’t judge you about what odd Cthulhu roleplay goes on behind closed doors with your teenage Lovecraft.”

“No, V, no judgment, I promise. I’m just surprised is all, I swear,” Betty defends quickly and then doubles back. “Wait, Cthulhu?”

Veronica quirks an eyebrow and Betty blanches. “Betty, please remember I am not as thick as Archie. Give me a little credit.” She should not have expected less. Veronica recognized the chemistry between Jughead and Betty even before Betty, and she had been in Riverdale less than a month.

“What makes you think it’s weird?”

“Did I say weird?” Veronica contends. “Besides, whatever,” she searches for the right word, “Eccentric sex games go on between you and Mr. Poe, ravens tapping at chamber doors and all those  _ interesting  _ metaphors, are the least of my worries about your relationship with that boy.”

Betty catches that. “But you have worries?”

Veronica seems to recognize her slip and preoccupies her mouth with her milkshake.

“Veronica.”

Air gets inside her straw and the brunette sucks at it obnoxiously.

“You’re not the type to keep your opinions to yourself,” Betty reminds her. “I didn’t think Veronica Lodge was afraid of what people thought of her, even me.”

“Do you know what he does for them?”

“Who? The Serpents?” Veronica nods. “Nothing. It’s usually about his dad or odd jobs,” she lies.

Veronica sits back in the booth regarding Betty, ferreting out the lie. “Are you sure? I mean, there is this whole side of him we know nothing about. It’s unnerving. He’s unpredictable.”

But, isn’t Betty the same.

“Sorry,” Veronica apologizes, half-assedly by her tone. “It’s just – sometimes it feels like you and Archie give him this free pass and don’t even think about it. Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up with him but I’m just – I’m concerned, B.”

“You don’t have to be,” Betty assures her. So much of Jughead is on a need-to-know basis. So much is on an only-Betty-needs-to-know basis. She keeps it that way.

“Do you think maybe you have a blind spot when it comes to Jughead?” Veronica wonders.

If she has one, he does, too. “I’m not blind, Veronica.”

Her phone chimes with a reminder. “I have an appointment.” Veronica nods in acknowledgment, expecting this. It’s Thursday, therapy session day. She waves down Paul Sparks to fetch a to-go cup for Miss Betty’s milkshake.

When he reaches their table, he offers to pour it for Betty. As Betty and Paul try to negotiate for the to-go cup and the milkshake glass, too much politeness in one exchange, Veronica sidelines Paul with a comment about his uniform, how cute his bow tie is, mentions something Betty thinks sounds like how much she would like to tie him to her bed with it, and then the rest of Betty’s strawberry milkshake lands in her lap.  

* * *

 

**December 2017**

**Betty**

**Dr. Glass Session #19**

Dr. Glass retrieves a damp hand towel from his patient restroom and offers it to Betty. She accepts it with a subdued thanks and dabs at the ice cream stain on her skirt.

“That looks like some mishap,” he comments.

“The busboy at Pop’s had a little scare today,” Betty explains, checking the damp circle under the towel before pressing it back to the corduroy.  

“You go to Pop’s after school a lot?” He wonders, taking his seat, adjusting his glasses, crossing his legs, smoothing the front of his shirt – the same head-to-toe body check he completes every session.

“I wouldn’t say a lot,” she counters, setting aside the towel. “I was meeting a friend.”

“An old friend?” He is running through the list of possibilities in his head.

“No, not really.” Betty lays the towel flat along the top dowel of a metal magazine rack next to her armchair.

“Did you have a good time?”

“Sure, she’s my best friend.”

He opens his mouth to ask more about her meeting with Veronica, but she interrupts him. “I’m just going to dive right into it,” she informs Dr. Glass without prompting. He nods okay, tells her to shoot. “Do you think people blind themselves to the faults of those they love on purpose?”

“What do you think?”

She sighs, frustrated, always answering a question with a question. “Yes. Isn’t that part of loving someone? You accept all of them, even their faults.” 

“Within reason?”

That is something that never really enters the equation of her relationship with Jughead – rationality. They are pi and primes and imaginary numbers, things that only make sense in certain situations, and they only really made sense when it was the two of them together. She is messed up. He is, too. But, placed in tandem, squared or divided in just the right way – rationality born from so much chaos – disorder into order, made real when linked.  They are better together. It took them the whole twelve months past to figure that out, and it felt like the most rational decision she made all year.

“Jughead accepts your faults, right?”

“Yes, of course,” Betty agrees quickly. She isn’t sure he sees them as faults so much as hidden assets. He certainly doesn’t appreciate the nail digging, but the other things – her reserved intensity, morbid curiosities, controlling tendencies, offhand aggression – he has never shied away, not once. Even the nail digging, he doesn’t blink.

“Even the parts that scare you, the darker parts of yourself.”

“Yes.” Never a question. “And I accept his, even the worst parts.” Even the parts she is still unsure about, still guessing at, still piecing together.

But Dr. Glass has latched onto something else, for once not Jughead. Or not so much. “Are you scared of yourself, Betty?”  _ Entrapment, doc.  _ Betty wonders if he is secretly cheering inside that sneak-thieving little psychobabble head of his.

“Isn’t everyone at least a little bit afraid of themselves?” Dr. Glass doesn’t respond to that. “Yes,” she finally caves. “There is a part of me I don’t trust. I think she can get out of hand sometimes. She has before.”

“Do you think this darker part is completely separate from yourself?”

“It feels like it sometimes.”

“And Jughead, does he treat it like it is another part of you, like it is someone apart from you, this Betty,” he wonders, gesturing at the teenage girl across from him with the milkshake stain on her corduroy skirt, the girl that jokes about swinging and double-entendres about Poe in Pop’s, not the other Betty that coerces confessions through threat of drowning or feeds people to serial killers.

“I don’t think so.” Because she really doesn’t know. He asks to see her sometimes. Maybe he does treat her, the other Betty, as something separate. Or maybe he is just reading off Betty, going along because Betty thinks the same. But he also seems content with Betty as she is on a regular day. He never looks at her with anything but all the good things – admiration, adoration, want, love – even when she feels at her worst. Maybe there is no difference to him, pink and pretty and pleasant Betty, and the other one, the less pleasant one, the much less kind one.

Maybe he asks to see  _ her _ because he knows sometimes she needs to let her out. And it is that, sometimes, a need.

“This other Betty – Dark Betty – isn’t she you?”

Dr. Glass must spot the panic in Betty’s eyes, and he takes a mental step back, adjusting his glasses at the miscue.

She shakes her head quickly, not about his statement but about her reaction. “Sorry,” she tries to reassure him hastily, flattening her hands on the arms of the chair. She feels sidetracked, stewing on Jughead’s perception of her only to have it flipped back on her head. Gripping the chair arms, she attempts to readjust, and Dr. Glass waits patiently.

Sometimes the need is so constant Betty finds it taxing to be around others. Sometimes she just wants to tear everything apart, everything within reach, and instead she tears herself apart, wrenches herself in twain and puts this other Betty in a box with a tight heavy lid. Right when she starts to feel that awful creature scratching at the surface, there is Jughead picking at the lid.

“Sorry,” she says again, and Dr. Glass opens his mouth to remind her not to apologize. She cuts him off. “No, this is good. You’re right.”

“Am I?” He says it so carefully. He knows he is, but he isn’t quite certain she is ready to hear it.

He is right, that she treats this darker part of herself as something other, as some separate entity with its own conscience.

There is no real difference between the two Betties, similar thoughts and feelings and intentions and desires. The only incongruence, the only deviation between herself and the other Betty exists in their actions and reactions. Betty internalizes. The other one externalizes. But, it is her. She has failed over and over to reconcile this other Betty with her entirety. It is how she shifts the blame for what she does to others when she can no longer stand to do it to herself.

“It is me.”

She is terrified. He senses that, says nothing, waits for her to process it. She needs to feel it, though, she tells herself, reasons with herself. Ants crawl under the skin of her forearms, and her hands feel numb. Her face feels numb.

_ What are you so scared of when he loves you so completely?  _ Because he doesn’t see two Betties. Jughead plays the game for her sake. Both Betties love him to the point of distraction, so again no real difference, she tallies for herself.

“Betty,” Dr. Glass prompts gently.

“It’s a hard realization to reach and come to terms with,” she explains slowly, agreeing with what he doesn’t say, but he nods understanding. “Sometimes it feels so unmanageable. She feels uncontrollable. But,” she trails off, turning her palms up, studying the dark pink moons etched into her skin. There are scars, chunks of herself carved out in other places when she didn’t resort to her palms, gouges in her wrists, her shoulder blade, pieces of herself lost to her rage. What will be left at the end? And isn’t he so intent on preserving what is left? Jughead slips his hands into hers at any hint of unrest, pins her until she breathes easy again, redirects her wrath towards someone who can manage it better, towards himself, feeding on it without missing a step, offloading some of that disordered feeling, waiting patiently until she learns the way herself.

“When you realize it is you, maybe it could be easier to take control. Maybe that is when you learn to manage it, yourself. Better.” The relief on Dr. Glass’s face bleeds into her own, numbness receding, the feeling returning to her hands, the ants crawling back inside.  

 

* * *

 

**December 2017**

**Jughead**

**Night on Earth by Jerkcurb**

Her mother’s car isn’t in the garage when he peeks through the glass panels. Alice has been spending most weekends at the Farm. The Coopers no longer keep a spare key to the front door in the right window box on the porch, so he tries the side door to the garage. His shoulder runs into the door when he tries to open it. Betty must not have expected her mother to go this weekend. She usually leaves the garage unlocked so he can get the ladder if he wants. And he wants -- needs that fucking ladder.

He toes the pot of dead violets aside, hoping maybe they still keep a spare key there, and rummages around in the dark for the key, his fingers skirting over old potting soil and gravel. No key.  _ Goddamnit _ . It is the middle of the night. He thinks about sending her a text, but she usually silences her phone before bed.

Fine. Hunting knife it is. It’s freezing, and the handle burns his palm as he jimmies the tip of the blade into the rusting knob lock. He probably breaks it when he manages to finagle the blade just right and jerks the handle. The door won’t lock when he leaves with the ladder, but it would be an easy replacement. He could get it done before Alice returns from the Farm on Sunday. Just in time for Christmas Eve.

He is extra careful with the ladder, mindful not to let it slam against the side of the house. The window is locked when he gets to the top, and he wants to put his fist through the glass. Too many obstacles, hurdles to jump just to get to her.  _ Jump, jump, froggy,  _ he thinks, wedging the hunting knife between the bottom of the window frame and the sill, leveraging it open. He hears the wood crack a little, the small plastic locks breaking. Something else for him to fix this weekend.

Spotting the back of her head under the mound of her comforter, he feels bad. Neither of them have been sleeping much lately. He shimmies off his boots by the window, grabs his beanie off his head. He closes the window against the draft, hears her shift under the covers, the slide of cotton against cotton, but she doesn’t say anything. He takes off his denim jacket, and it feels a little heavier than usual, reminding him of the money in his pockets. It piles on her window bench – his jacket with the money, his beanie, the hunting knife, the Ruger pulled from his jeans.

He feels worse when he lifts the edge of the comforter and she curls further in on herself against the temperature change. He tries to make it brief, sliding his body onto the mattress and pulling the covers around them both. Her body starts to unfurl when his hand slips over her waist, across the soft plain of her stomach under her sleep shirt. She inhales long and slow, her exhale a pleased purr. He feels the warm press of her stomach against his hand, feels the purr in his palm that reverberates up the length of his arm, settles in the center of his chest.

The sting of ammonia lingers in his nose, his mouth, and he needs to replace it with her. She turns towards him, a tickled  _ mmm _ that ends on his mouth. She tastes like the strawberry toothpaste she has used since grade school and the glass of milk she drinks before bed, an odd combination that reminds him of sleep, but he couldn’t sleep now if he tried. His body is cold from driving the motorcycle back from Centerville, cold hands and cold cheeks and cold lips but the inside of his mouth is still hot. Not as hot as hers.

She starts to settle again after a few kisses, burying her cheek into his chest and drawing him closer. He can feel her fingertips stroking between his shoulder blades, sleepy swipes along the tension lines in his back. He wants to let her fall back asleep. He wants to be okay with just this much, and it is, enough. It could be.

His hands, at first safely curled along her lower back, the back of her neck, reach for less neutral territory, and he feels the drowsy play of her fingers at his shoulders rise to something with more energy, more intention at the nape of his neck. He cups her ass, pitches her hips forward while he rolls his own against her, her legs falling open around his own. She must feel him hard rutting between her legs, grinding against her core, and she moans soft, still a little dozy.

“I need you,” he whispers in her ear, dragging his teeth along her ear lobe, his tongue soothing the nip, slipping over the little divot from her piercing.

“What do you need?” It is so soft, tentative, a heady contrast to the groan he gets next when he ruts against her a second time. She chases his hips with her own, waking up now, slinging her leg around his thigh, her heel hooking at his calf. She rolls on top of him, drags her core against the front of his jeans again, again, and he slips his hands underneath her sleep shorts, his fingers gripping her bare ass and helping draw her back and forth. “Tell me what you need,” she manages, gasping as he drags her against the front of his jeans again. “Juggie.”

He doesn’t know how to say it. He doesn’t know how to ask for it. He sits up suddenly, pulling her toward him, bringing them so close that he can feel her hipbones against his own, her stomach pressing into his with each breath. Her fingers are eager underneath his flannel, pushing it off his shoulders. He watches her, the adorable concentration she demonstrates getting him undressed. “I want to see her.”

She pulls back a little but he jerks her forward, averts her instinct to retreat. “I want to see her.” More urgent this time. She chews her lip, and he reaches up, his thumb on her chin to tug it free. “Please, I need it.” She keeps her under tight lock and key. But she will show him. If he asks nicely. If he begs. “Please, Betty.” She likes it when he begs. 

She speaks finally, uncertain curiosity tinging her murmur. “I’m in control?”

“Yes, please,” he affirms his consent, dropping his hands flat to the mattress underneath them.

He feels a single fingertip gliding along the seam between his jeans and t-shirt, tickling underneath his navel like she is drawing some invisible line for herself across his skin. He curls his hands into the mattress, willing himself to be patient as she considers it.  _ Don’t struggle _ , he wants to tell her.  _ Don’t hide _ . 

Fully awake, her eyes are black in the dim of her bedroom. He wants to see them predatory green, see himself caught up like a boa as her irises disappear behind her pupils blown wide. He wants to see her.  At least one light, the lamp on her bedside table, but he waits to ask for permission first.

The shift comes like that, from tender affection to something more carnivorous when the soft fingertip under his navel tilts forward, and the next swipe across his abdomen is a nail.  _ There you are, _ he thinks relieved. “Okay, Jug.” He needs to be the only one who knows.

He lets himself relax when her hands spread across his shoulders and guide him to lie back, deceptively gentle as she spreads her hands across the expanse of his chest. “Limits,” she starts, her fingers tracing down his abdomen as if outlining the defines of her blank canvas. “Rough?” Starting simple, almost obvious, a little vague but a good hint to see where he wants this to go.

“Yes, please,” he breathes excited. 

She leans over him, shrouding their faces in a curtain of gold. “Biting?” He watches her tongue catch her teeth on the  _ t _ and a flush of pleasure runs from the base of his spine to his dick.

“Yes, please.” He tries to control his breathing, but she must already smell it on him, his eager anticipation coupled with the inklings of welcome unease, as she smiles.

“Slapping.” The look she gives him says it’s a test, to see if he can set his own boundaries. 

 But, he has so few when it comes to her. Only one and it has nothing to do with this. “Yes, please.”

“Are you sure, Jug?”

“Yes, please,” he answers, reaching for the hem of his shirt when she stops him. “I trust you.” She rolls her hips against him to test that theory, and his eyes roll back up inside his head. “God, I trust you.”

He grabs her hips to make her do it again, and she reprimands him with a nip to the shell of his ear. He jerks away, a little surprised. “You don’t get to dictate what happens or doesn’t happen and when,” she scolds quietly, her tone measured and gentle even as his ear throbs from her bite.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, his fingers slipping from her hips to press his palms back to the mattress. 

“What was that?”

“Please forgive me,” he amends. 

She  _ mms _ so pleased as punch, and it spreads infectious inside his stomach, turns his insides to compliant goo. Her head drops away and he feels her eyes on the side of his face, the tip of her nose under his jawline. “Were you smoking?” She must smell the cigarette smoke on his skin, suffused in the cotton of his shirt. He swallows, nods. “Bad boy.” She isn’t a fan, and he feels a mean little tug to his hair as she jerks his head aside.

“I need to be punished,” he admits, warily watching her nod thoughtfully in the dark as she sits up.

“You can’t touch yourself. Only I can. You can’t touch me unless I say so.” So it will be all he thinks about. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

Her smirk is hard to decipher in the dim, and he desperately wants to ask for some light. He needs to see her. He is about to ask when she moves down his torso and her intentions are clear, feeling the hot press of her mouth through the cotton of his shirt. When she gets to his stomach, bunching his shirt up, feeling the slick warm swipe of her tongue at his navel as her hands find his belt buckle, he feels the need to set a hard limit, just in case. “No biting, please. There.”

She peeks up at him from under the covers. “Of course, Juggie.” Her confounding smirk has him on edge as his head falls back against her pillow, listening to the sound of his zipper being dragged down at the same time she presses a mindful kiss to the scar above his navel. It is some kind of misdirected guilt masquerading as tender sympathy that makes his insides clench, yearning to remind her quickly not to worry, to stop worrying, but he cannot without breaking the rules. His fingers scratch at the mattress, itching to card through all that gold, take care of her before she takes care of him.

“No peeking, Juggie,” she warns, giving him the eye before disappearing under the covers, and he flattens his palms to the mattress again, forces himself still.

She strips his jeans and boxers down his thighs just enough to get at what she wants. He fingers the edges of the comforter but she dares him to try with another nick of her teeth to the inside of his thigh, dangerously close to other more sensitive parts of his anatomy.

He touches the tip of his ear that still pulses from her teeth, moans and tugs on it when her tongue slides from the base of his dick to the tip, one heavy stripe that make his own tongue feel swollen, saliva pooling in his mouth that has him swallowing again. “Fuck, Betty.”

Another playful swipe of her tongue and then her lips close over the tip, his hips rising to slip further inside her hot mouth. He feels her nails in his thigh, imagines the warning moons denting the skin, feels his imaginations melt away as her tongue curls around his dick. His fingers curl into the sheets in response, longing to sift through her hair. It tickles his thighs as she bobs up and down, working her way up to the full length of him. He nearly breaks the rules, wondering if he can get away with smoothing the tips of her hair between his fingers, thinking perhaps she wouldn’t notice. Then, he is all the way inside, her throat constricting around his cock as she gags, and he chokes on a groan as she chokes herself on him.

Fuck, this was supposed to be punishment, he thinks, turning his face into her pillow and inhaling deep, pulling the vanilla and peppermint inside of him. He might come soon, too soon. He might warn her. Forgets to warn her when she deep throats him again.

The moment he starts feeling the first windings of his orgasm, her lips pop off his cock, replacing her mouth with her hand, sloppy loose tugs that don’t nearly satisfy as much as her throat. “Not yet, Juggie,” she tells him from under the covers, and he can hear the smile behind it.

He wants to ask when, his toes curling restlessly inside his socks. His orgasm eludes him, seeping away like a hazy dream, and his gaze falls to the pile on her window bench – his customary denim sherpa, his crown, the gun and the cash. Mustang’s dead body sprawled haphazardly in the tub like someone dropped him there with the needle still in his arm, and Jug closes his eyes so tight he sees hot bursting spots of light behind his lids.

She kisses the tip of his dick tenderly, her grip firmer as she slides her hand up and down the length of him. Her kiss spreads into an open-mouthed swallow, his dick hitting the back of her throat. The whole world falls away as she comes back up, her lips tight around his cock, her tongue pressed flat to the underside that ends in a curl along his head, and he whimpers. Actually whimpers, feeling weak, at her mercy. “Betty, please.” There is a symbolic reward somewhere in her ministrations as she swirls her tongue around the head, her hand stroking the rest of him. “Betty, Jesus, I’m gonna – ,” he gasps, close again, feeling strangled, caught by her.

She stops again, slackening her grip, kissing the underside of his dick affectionately. A protracted and frustrated series of  _ noes  _ rush out of him, and he wants to grab her by the sides of her head and force her mouth on his cock, face fuck her until he gets what he wants. But, this isn’t about what he wants, he reminds himself.

She sits up, the covers falling behind her, and then he gets to see her. He looks at her and every atom in his body resonates with shameless want, and though she hates the word, she will always be untouchable perfection to him. Perched between his thighs while lazily stroking his dick, her lips swollen and her blonde hair staticky that he can see the fly-aways haloing her crown in the dim. Her eyes shine like a predator, and she must feel his dick twitch in her hands when she smiles sly.

“I don’t like these clothes on you, Juggie,” she grumbles cutely, her free hand tugging as his jeans.

“Do you want me to take them off?” he wonders, testing the waters, his hands sliding unsurely to the waistband of his jeans, so close to where her hand works over him.

“Everything,” she orders. “I want everything off right now.”

She falls to the side, letting him shimmy quickly out of his jeans, his boxers, peeling his socks off and kicking it all over the side of the bed. He greedily side-eyes her as she peels her sleep shorts off, no panties, bare underneath. She sits up on her knees as he peels his shirt off, helping him out of it when it gets tangled up around his head.

Free of his shirt and ready for more direction, he tilts his chin up at her expectantly. His dick bobs up between her legs, the head grazing the inside of her thigh, jolting towards her pussy with a mind of its own. Her hands draw her own shirt up and over her head, a shirt she stole from him. For a moment, her perfect breasts are pressed to his face, and he tilts his face forward, inhales, nearly spreads his mouth over one nipple, over as much of her breast as he can. She tosses the shirt behind her, turning back to him, smiling at his gaze on her chest, drawing it back up with her fingers under his jaw.

He worries he is too keyed up for this, but then his nerves go liquid when she commands, “Tell me you’re mine.” Her palms soft against his cheeks as she keeps his gaze on her, fingertips grazing the edge of his hairline, soothing the bite on the shell of his ear.

Without hesitation, “I’m yours.” It leaves him and it feels like his spirit goes with it, for hers to keep.

“You’re mine,” she affirms, smiling at the plaintive little groan that comes involuntarily from the back of his throat. She presses her lips to his cheekbone, kisses his eyes closed as she sits closer and he can feel how wet she is against his cock. “Lie back, Juggie.”

He does it before her hands can insist on it, falling back and feeling the air rush up around him from the pillow, the mattress, comforted by the dull thump of his body hitting something soft but solid. “You’re mine,” she says again as her hand guides him towards her entrance.

“I’m yours,” he repeats, never so certain of anything else as she sinks down around him.

Once settled, she shifts, getting situated, and he feels too accommodated, too comfortable, wishes they could just rest like this for a few more complete moments. “Put your hands on me, Jug,” she orders, bringing his hands to her skin, curling his fingers around the handles of her hipbones. “Now, fuck me.”

He gives her one languid stroke, watches her lips part slowly with the long motion, her tongue swiping along the full pink bottom. Then she smiles with teeth. Her palm cradles his cheek again, like she thinks he is cute trying to be loving and kind, thinking she wants a first Corinthians fuck. He closes his eyes against the patient press of her palm until they snap back open at the sudden sting. “I didn’t tell you to make love to me, Jug. I told you to fuck me.”

She gives him a look,  _ catch my drift _ . His fingers dig into the soft flesh behind her hipbones, prompting her to rise just enough so he can snap his hips up. The air leaves her in a short surprised gasp that melts into a pleased smile. “Harder,” she urges, and he thrusts up with a little more brute force, feels her drop her hips down to meet him. “Mmm, harder, Juggie.”

“Can I please?” Flip her, he means. It would be easier to fuck her harder that way.

Her fingertips tease under his jawline, her eyes closed as he fucks her from below like she isn’t even considering his request, just feeling him. “No,” she decides in a single breath because she did hear him. She just didn’t consider it, not even for a moment.  _ God, you’re perfect _ , he thinks, planting his feet on the mattress for leverage and snapping his hips up again while his hands pull her downward, grinding against her cunt every so often to hear her groan, jerk against him when he gets the thrust just right against her clit.

He is mesmerized by the bounce of her tits with each rough pitch of his hips, wants to sit up and close his mouth around them, lave at her nipples, roll them between his teeth to hear her keen. But, she hasn’t given him permission, so he focuses on what he can do. She lets him control her hips, yanking her down on his cock as he bucks up, and her hands do the rest of the work for him, cupping her breasts, pinching where he wishes his teeth could go. He wants to leave a mark where her fingers work over her nipple, concentrates on that image of his teeth carving over where she is pretty and pink. When he starts to sit up and attempt to fulfill that fantasy, she pushes him back down, smacks him lightly on the cheek like she is scolding a child.

She can feel how close he is getting, his thrusts getting shorter, sloppier, and then there is another one smarting on his cheek. The sound and the shock and moments later the sting that yanks him away from his orgasm. She works her way up to it, small taps of admonishment as he loses focus to the tight hot suck of her cunt, working out the perfect reach, the top of her palm connecting soundly with the fleshy round of his cheek. He gets complacent until all of a sudden –  _ whap _ .

Every strike to his face makes him feel owned. Eventually it begins to focus the pleasure grinding and winding and condensing in the pit of his belly, a false association, each smack of her hand sending a flare of pleasure through his gut, makes his balls throb as he thrusts up. She is close, too, clenching around his dick in ever tightening intervals. She needs to come first, he reminds himself. She gets to come first.

Her whole body folds over him as he jerks his hips up, the slapping of skin against skin no longer her palm against his cheek. She bites his lower lip and breathes his name against his mouth, like a reverent little prayer, but she is his god. His grip on her hipbones must hurt, might bruise. He wants to see the fingermarks afterwards. He hopes her fingermarks are imprinted on his cheeks.

“Coming,” she barely gets out, ending in a sharp whine punctuated by an unbelievable clutching around his cock that has him reeling, sanity ditched as he bucks up into her with abandon.

She comes and then he does, allows it because she does. His orgasm melts through his body like a drug. She is a drug, he thinks blissed out and offhand, emptying himself inside her.

He can feel her fingers gliding through his hair, pushing it back from his face, her lips on his cheeks. “I love you so much, Juggie,” she murmurs, fond swipes of her thumbs along his cheekbones. “You’re good.” He wonders if her palms are sweaty, or if his face is sweaty, and then realizes his eyes hurt a little, like maybe she aimed too high once or twice. “You’re so good.” And then he recognizes he is crying, listening to the tender reminders at his ear of how much she loves him, despite his transgressions – the dead man in the tub, the junkie on the bed, the blood money in his pockets, the present in the seat compartment of his father’s motorcycle – her thumbs soothing the phantom stings of her palms against his cheeks.  _ I love you to fucking pieces _ , he thinks privately to himself, shattered and remade again, anew, when she kisses him fully and tastes like redemption.  

* * *

 

**December 2017**

**Betty**

**Wolfman Agenda by Shakey Graves**

He gently maneuvers her to the side, her sweaty thighs chafing over his own, feeling him slide free from between her legs. Kissing her bottom lip once quick, she follows his mouth for more until he tells her he needs a shower.

“Okay, let me get my legs back,” she says, assuming an extended invitation. He doesn’t offer any verbal confirmation, smoothing his palm along the curve of her waist as he leaves the bed.  _ Don’t drop, Jug _ , she thinks, watching him drag himself buck naked to her bathroom.

She gives him a few minutes, stretching the length of her bed across the mussed, damp sheets, easing out the aches in her joints from the intensity of her orgasm. It was a satisfying zero-hour surprise for her. She thought it was for him, too.

Her fingers trip down the soft hummock below her navel, to the swale between the bony hills of her hipbones that still throb from the force of his grip. Everything pleasantly sore, she nearly wants to fall back asleep, let the slow seep of endorphins lull her well-fucked body into blissful repose, but then she feels it, the tug from behind the closed door to the bathroom. He is dropping. She could feel it in his lips, the mechanical show of affection just before he left.

On the way to the bathroom, she stops by the window, draws the curtains to deprive Archie or any other passers-by of a free show. He piled everything so neatly on her window bench, his denim jacket folded, his crown on top. She brushes her fingers across the fuzzy sherpa, the well-worn wool of his beanie, something solid and unforgiving underneath it all. Shifting the clothes aside, she sees the matte black steel of the gun, the holstered hunting knife.

She used to be scared of the dark, of the unknowns in the dark. She felt lost in it. She used to fear what would come out of it. Before bed she would check the closet, under the bed, the bathtub, the locks on her window. There are little plastic pieces on the window seat. He broke the window locks to get into her room, she realizes with a short chuckle, surprised at the affection in it, her laugh and his impatience.

She was terrified of losing herself in the dark until she realized there was some comfort in being one of the unknowns inside it, how it gave her a sense of control to be unpredictable. She was terrified until she found him there in the dark, too, comforted by his wrongness, how well it complimented her own, unassuming, overlooked, underestimated, but possessing the same unpredictable rage, villainized by their circumstances, both quietly admitting to one another that sometimes they enjoyed it and could enjoy it together, could redirect it for the pleasure of the other. 

Coming up behind him, she wraps her arms around his torso, laying her head between his shoulders. He hasn’t even opened the shampoo yet, standing mute under the scald of the shower. She reaches around him to adjust the temperature to something less like a boiling, more like a simmer. “Let me wash your hair,” she commands, using her hands to manually turn him about-face.

“I’m gonna smell like you,” he comments, his gaze following her movements, studying her hands as she flips open the tab on her shampoo, working it between her palms, her fingers. It is something her mom buys, and she thinks it makes her smell like vanilla pudding, bland and unexciting, but it always sets Jughead off somehow. He often makes excuses to press his nose into her hair, so she never asks her mother to get something new.

Something about lathering the shampoo into his hair makes a flame of possession curl just under her sternum that swells as she gets to more of him. He will smell like her. She scritches and scratches behind his ears, the flame licking in the space at the base of her ribcage when he moans low, tilting his head towards her.

“Does that feel good?” He steadies himself with his hands at her waist, murmur-wonders if this is how Vegas feels when he scratches him behind the ears. “Probably,” she figures, smiling. The Andrews’ dog melts into goo whenever he gets a good pet down.

“I wanna be your dog,” he admits.

“So messed up, I want you here,” she sing-songs and he laughs. “Head back,” she orders, slicking his hair back, pushing suds away from his eyes.

Most of the shampoo out of his hair, he reaches for the bar of soap, the sharp smell of tea tree and peppermint permeating the steam as he wrings the soap between his hands. “Can I?”

She nods, letting her arms fall to her sides when his palms close around her shoulders, the soap in one hand, lather in the other. He starts at the top, and she pulls her shoulders back when his hands move behind her, down the wings of her shoulder blades, his fingers tracing the sinewy lines along her spine. His hand curls along her throat, rubbing the spaces under her ears. He is thorough, fingers reaching nooks and crannies she wouldn’t on a regular day, tripping over her ribs, dipping into her navel. He reaches around her, running the soap and his hand down her lower back. She feels a phantom fullness between her legs, remembering the feel of him inside her, when his fingers slip into the crevice of her ass, a slick slide of soap over one fleshy globe and the peek of his fingertips up under the space between her legs that might be frisky any other time, but the look on his face makes it reverential, worshipful.

She makes a grab for the soap resting in his hand against her lower back, and then he drops to his knees, running his hands down her long legs, up over her strong thighs. He slips his soapy hand between her legs, his fingers gliding through her sex, through the mess of her, of him. She balances herself with hands on his shoulders as her knees buckle from the skim of his touch over sensitive achy flesh. He presses a sloppy kiss low on her stomach, sucks a mark below her hipbone. She wants to tell him she is too tired for round two. The first one took everything out of her.

Then, he stops, gazing up at her. “Can I tell you something?” He amends it suddenly. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay,” she agrees easily, carding her fingers through his hair and hoping he will stand and talk to her on the same level. She prefers them on the same level. “You can tell me anything, Jug.”

Remaining on his knees, he leans his head into her hand. “Yeah?” He lays kisses to the tops of her thighs. The bar of soap has floated down to rest over the drain.

“Yes, Jughead,” she states more firmly, and he seems to relax under the display of dominance. The element of it remains here between them, suggesting they haven’t finished whatever they started in the bedroom.

“I think I got someone killed,” he admits, his hands leaving her body like he doesn’t think he is allowed to touch her anymore, punishing himself before she has the chance.

She keeps her hands in his hair, tilting his face back to look up at her, directing his gaze, keeps her own open and accepting. “Why do you think that?” She tries to imagine hearing the words that would make her hate him, wonders if the phrase exists. This wouldn’t be the first body to show up in their columns, and they survived the last one and the one before that and all the ones that preceded those. “Did you kill someone?”

“No,” he assures her. “Someone – a guy, he was stealing from the Serpents. He was working for Hiram Lodge, and he was threatening to go to the police,” he explains, redacting some names. She wouldn’t know them. She barely knows about Tall Boy and Sweet Pea, those men he met in Pop’s last week, knows they are involved in whatever this is.

“That would’ve hurt a lot of people, right?” She is well versed in this play, making sacrifices to safeguard others, and so it is easy to make excuses for him, automatic for her to reason away the worst of them both. Nothing about their lives is black and white anymore.

“They wanted me to find him, and I did. I told him he needed to either talk to Tall Boy or leave the money behind and skip town.” 

“You gave him the option of leaving, Jughead.” The Serpents would not have extended the same kindness.

“I don’t feel like I gave him anything, any choice,” he argues, resting his forehead against her stomach.

She tugs his head up gently by his just-washed hair, fingertips pressed to his cheekbone to keep him there. “If he stayed, what would they have done to him?” He gives her a look, the answer plain. “You gave him a choice.”

“And he killed himself.”

“You are not responsible for that,” she says adamantly. “He could have left. Or he could have faced his mistakes.” He chose the easy way out. He couldn’t make the difficult choice to accept responsibility for his actions. Even Betty knows she will have to pay for her own eventually.

Suddenly, Jughead is on his feet, trapping her into a corner of the shower to drive his point him. “I drove him into a corner, Betty. I didn’t give him a choice.” She gives him a look like she doesn’t understand, that she is missing something. “Mia.”

“Who?”

“His daughter.”

“What about her?”

“If Mustang left, the Serpents, what would they have done to her?” He says, twisting her words around. She swallows, feeling smothered, by the steam, the light blocked out by Jug’s closeness with the tile cold and hard at her back.

“What could you have done differently, Jughead?” She often thinks about this, about all the awful choices she made in response to extenuating circumstances. She thinks about the consequences if she had made the morally right choices, if she had not caved to her father’s psychopathic manipulation. Would Nick St. Claire still be alive, free to continue his unsavory hobbies, create another hapless date-rape victim, and another, and another. By the same token, would Chuck Clayton be given license to continue his campaign of freely denigrating the entire Riverdale High female student body.

She knows she was not entitled to make those choices, but someone gave them to her anyway. And the alternative was losing more than she could bear. Losing her dignity, her security, her reputation with Chuck Clayton – things she could repair without doing what she did. Sure, she can admit that. Jughead was not some abstract value she could recover but finite flesh and blood, endable. If someone asked her again to make the choice between an unapologetic date-rapist like Nick St. Claire and this, him, this imperfect boy who loves her with inexhaustible conviction, this consummate and invaluable connection, her unequaled counterpart. She would not survive it.

His hands are wrapped around her wrists, pinning them to the shower tile. He looks down at them, wondering, loosening his grip to press his palms to hers. “I don’t know,” he admits, lost, his doubts and insecurities balanced precariously on the bow of his lips.

“You’re thinking about her,” she reminds him, twining their fingers together, pushing them both away from the shower wall and back under the warm spray. “I think that proves you’re not a monster, Juggie. Do you think Tall Boy cares about what happens to her, that Sweet Pea thinks twice? You think twice, Jug,” she reassures him, tugging on his hands, pulling him towards her. “You always think one step past yourself. It’s what I love about you.” 

He untangles his fingers from hers, and for a moment she worries that maybe she didn’t do something right, that she’s lost him, but then his hands are under her jawline, tilting her face up towards his own. “I love you,” he swears with that familiar raw sincerity that he does so well with her, prying him open bit by bit as she has over the past year, slipping her hand in that carefully guarded space between his ribs to plant her tethers there, bind him to her.

* * *

 

**December 2017**

**Jughead**

**Dead and Lovely by Tom Waits**

“Merry Christmas, dad,” he greets, sitting across from his father for the first time in nearly eight months.

“You look pretty spry for recovering from a bullet wound,” his father comments, shuffling the mismatched deck of cards. There is a stack of second-hand board games sitting on a table by one of the guards. He wonders if the games are a soft touch for the holidays or whether they started allowing it on the regular. Another father plays Candyland with his kids at the table over, some cards replaced with hand-written slips of paper.

“That was last spring,” he reminds his dad.

“Everything okay on the inside, though?” He wonders, gesturing at Jug’s torso.

“Yeah, they pulled it out of me in pieces but lucky it didn’t hit my stomach.”

His father snorts, something like a light laugh, less sneer to it. “Missed your favorite organ.”

“Your concern is heartwarming, dad,” Jug snarks back, actually meaning it for once, in a half-light.

“Well, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Jughead,” his father reasons, bridging on the next shuffle. Jughead wonders if his father missed him. Wonders until, “You got yourself into that mess on your own, and we both know why.” Jug knows that. He doesn’t need his father to remind him. “How’s Betty?” Another emotional jab at the scar tissue in his stomach, a nitpick at more of his bad habits.  

“I’m not going to talk about her with you.” It comes out like a warning. 

FP nods like he expected that, shifts gears. “Still doing favors for the Serpents, I hear. What are you getting in return?” Jughead knows FP is wondering about the money. It is always about the money.

“The trailer, right now,” he reveals warily.

“What about the trailer?”

“They’re helping me cover the rent.”

“What? We own that trailer.”

He knows that. He was ready to put it up for sale when the lease ended last December, and then he got that call from the property management office. “The rental space,” Jughead clarifies. Self-consciously scratching underneath the wool of his beanie, he doesn’t know why he keeps the trailer, another one of his persistent bad habits, holding onto childish things to maintain his own sense of normalcy.

“That’s not a lot each month. We’re rent controlled,” FP reasons, dealing Jughead a hand for cribbage. “That all you’re getting?” Money. Always about the money.

“Yeah, that’s all I’m getting. Anything extra goes towards our medical bills.” Because it is a joint effort, Jughead argued with Fred. He nearly thought Freddie Andrews might pop him when he wouldn’t back down, but that outstretched hand wrapped around the back of his neck instead and pulled him into a grizzly bear hug.

FP mumbles  _ extra _ to himself while dealing his own hand. There is a pen and paper next to him for keeping score.  The first card is a jack. Two points for FP out of the starting gate. “So what are you here for, Jug? Is this a social call?”

Jughead wants to say yes, that he really was just visiting for a quick update, play a couple games of cribbage, shoot some shat. He wonders if that will ever be the case. He wonders if his father ever wants that to be the case, too. Jug inspects his cards, lays down the first to bring the count to three. “We got the snitch.”

His father laughs. “Which one?”

Jughead takes a beat.  _ Was there more than one?  _ Then,  _ you didn’t know everything your father was involved in, Jones _ . Not that he would willingly continue digging for the others. “The guy who planted the gun,” Jughead elaborates. “It was Mustang.”

His father plays a five of spades, eight count. He doesn’t seem surprised. “Where is he?”

Jughead doesn’t miss the beat this time, whispering to his dad, “He killed himself.”

FP sneers something ugly, little boy mean. “Fucking coward.” He makes eyes at Jughead’s hand, so Jug plays a card without looking. “We have any evidence he planted the gun? Any paper trail?”

Jughead scoured that hostel room, lifted every ceiling tile, pulled out every drawer. He knows Tall Boy and Sweet Pea raided his studio back in Riverdale. Nothing but Hiram Lodge’s duffle and the present he left for Mia. “No.”

FP snaps down a king. “31.” He tallies the score longhand on the sheet of paper. “Fucking turncoat,” he mutters to himself. Jughead notices his father shorted him a point but doesn’t correct him. As FP deals another hand, he gives Jughead a wry pained smile. “It’s not like it would have changed anything. Can’t recant a confession, can I? Gun or no gun.” Jughead almost opens his mouth to agree but thinks better of it and grabs his new hand without comment. He doesn’t know how to give voice to the fact he hopes his father never gets out of prison. He rues the day but fears more that his father will drag him into this place. Sometimes his father looks at him like he wishes Jughead was on the other side of the table. 

  

* * *

 

 

Picking up dinner to bring to the Andrews’, he finds Mia at Pop’s sitting in a booth alone.

It is good timing. The money burns a two-day hole in his jacket pocket. When he went to visit his father, he stashed the cash in the secret compartment under the treehouse floorboards with the rest of the keepsakes he hides there, retrieving it as soon as he got back.

After putting his order in at the front, he slides into the booth across from her. Her milkshake is half-drunk cookies and cream.

“Mia, how are you?”

Before he left for Shankshaw, he slipped the present into her aunt’s mailbox yesterday, including the note forged in Mustang’s hand.

She fiddles with her straw, winding it along the lip of the glass. There are holes in the ends of her thermal shirtsleeves. “I don’t think he’s coming back,” she murmurs, and he leans forward to hear her better. Leans back when she straightens suddenly, pushing her milkshake away. “I mean, the last time I talked to him, that’s how he made it sound. I shouldn’t be surprise, you know. It’s practically a rite of passage for kids like us, right?”

Jughead doesn’t know whether to nod mutely or comfort her. He fumbles with the money in his jacket pocket, wonders if this is an appropriate time. It wouldn’t exactly be subtle to slap that much cash down on the table, make some joke about buying the last half of her shake.

“Are you a Serpent now, Jug?” She asks suddenly, and he pulls his hands from his pockets, leaving the money behind.

“No. What made you think that?”

“I saw you,” she says. “What were you doing following my dad?”

Jughead rubs at the edge of his ear poking out from underneath his beanie. It is still sore from when Betty bit him. “I was doing a favor for my dad,” he explains, another half-truth. He wonders if he is only made of half-truths, how all of them are actually lies in another light, if everything he shows to the world is just a smoke screen. The only one who gets within even an inch of the truth is Betty. He reminds himself she hasn’t run away yet. “He didn’t exactly leave on good terms. My dad just wanted some information.”

“Did you get that?”

“No,” he lies. “I lost him.”

Mia traces shapes on her milkshake glass, swirling the bottom in the condensation rings on the vinyl tabletop. “I’m thinking about joining the Serpents.”

“What?”

“I mean,” she trails off, watching some teenagers studying in the next booth over.

“Why?”

“I don’t have anyone left.”

“You have your aunt,” Jughead reminds her.

She chews her lip, reminding him of Betty when he asked her to show him, to take control, so much uncertainty and doubt in that anxious pinch of her teeth. “You don’t know her. And we have bills.”

“The Serpents take care of their own.”

Mia scoffs at that. “Yeah, my dad didn’t exactly leaf on the best of terms, did he?”

“You don’t need to join the Serpents, Mia,” he starts, reaching for some other reason until he remembers the money in his pocket. “Wait,” he says when she gives him a skeptical look. “Wait, here.” He pulls the money from his pocket, the strap of hundreds. He kept the paltry two grand Tall Boy allotted for her for himself to pay off the last of his medical bills.  He flashes it over the lip of the table and then tries to hand it to her under the table.

She doesn’t take it. “Where’d you get that?”

“Your dad,” he admits, as close to the truth as he can get, still holding the money to her.

“You said you lost him.” She eyes the tabletop, though, knows the money is somewhere underneath and reachable.

“I know it sucks, Mia, having your dad run out on you. Trust me, I know. Parents suck, but your dad had the decency to leave this for you. He was thinking about you. He cared about you.” Jughead is sure this is true on some level. Or maybe it is only his self-indulgent fantasies, that Mustang was actually a half-decent father figure when he was around, wishful thinking on Jughead’s part.

“I can help you get a part time job at the Bijoux, too. We have an opening right now,” he adds. Betty’s imposter brother left a vacancy the theatre has yet to fill. “This will help for a while,” he says, patting her knee with the money. “And I know a really good tutor, if you need help with school,” he builds on, thinking of Betty.

“The Serpents aren’t the end all be all for kids like us,” he promises, practically begging her with his eyes to take the damn money.

“You haven’t joined them either?” Mia doesn’t seem to believe that.

“No,” he swears. “Not formally. What I’m doing, it’s so I don’t have to.” Those lines are starting to blur, though. “I don’t want to.” He doesn’t want her to feel like that is all she has to feel safe, getting up on that stage and dancing, giving her physical autonomy over to those bastards.

It isn’t as if he is afraid of getting the shit beaten out of him. He’s been knocked around before. Hell, he’s been shot. Pain has nothing to do with it.  

On some level, there really isn’t a disparity. In both cases, the recruit hands their physical autonomy over to the group – the women their chastity, their physical privacy, naked with nothing to hide, and the men offering themselves up a painful litany of fists and boot heels to prove they would bleed for them, die for them. Each one has its own particular brand of suffering begotten by social humiliation and emotional sacrifice, the sacrifice of the body to physical harm, psychological exploitation. The physical body no longer belongs to the individual but to the group.

And that is what terrifies Jughead. Belonging to them. Needing them more than they need him.

He only belongs to one person. And he would bleed for her. He has.

He doesn’t want to think about Mia getting up on that stage and dancing because then he would have to think about his own initiation. It was one of his reasons for never officially joining because Betty might follow him into the blind by default. She would march up on that stage without question. The thought makes his insides twist. He is the only one that gets to see that side of her. He needs to keep it that way, at any cost.

“I don’t want you to,” Jughead declares.

She takes the money.

  

* * *

 

 

**December 2016**

**Jughead**

**Little Boring Thing by Jerkcurb**

It is fifteen minutes before first period when he decides she isn’t coming. 

 

He slips his switchblade under the plastic ties holding together a sheaf of  _ Blue and Gold _ issues, fresh off the press, swipes up with the knife and snatches a copy off the top of the stack. Stabbing the blade closed on her desktop, he glances over the first page. The cover story is a top ten list for best places to go sledding in the greater Riverdale area. Pretty depressing stuff, he thinks, wondering if she is saving her Black Hood story for the Register.

He drops into her chair, spins lazily with his feet dragging the linoleum. The room revolves about him and he gets each piece frame-by-frame, her desktop with the newest  _ Blue and Gold _ opened atop, her spare pens scattered on the handwritten calendar, the bookshelves with archived issues and yearbooks and writing manuals, the drafting desk where she worked on the layout, the side-by-side corkboards with her spider’s web detailing the Black Hood murders.

He skids to a stop, spreads his legs towards the murder boards, rolling one of her pens under his fingers. The cap falls off and skitters away awkwardly. He notices her teeth marks in the plastic have warped it so badly it doesn’t sit right anymore. Replacing the cap as best he can, he slips the pen into his back pocket as he leans towards the murder board to get a better look.

It is too much of a coincidence by half. He scratches absently at the bruises starting to itch their way onto his throat, ten fingermarks. 

 

Studying them in the bedroom door mirror while Archie showered, he counted ten. When Archie came barreling through the door, Jug quickly pulled a sweater over his head to hide the bruises on his stomach, the butterfly bandages he replaced.

“Hey, I’m going to walk to school with Veronica,” Archie informed Jug with his sweater halfway on. “Are you coming to Secret Santa after school?” Crap, he forgot. He thinks he pulled Kevin’s name.

“So you two made up?” He inquired, hopefully subtly, pulling his sweater all the way over his head. 

 

Archie’s back turned as he rummaged through his dresser drawers, Jug stole a glance out the bedroom window. Archie chattered about Veronica’s visit earlier that morning, sometime before Jughead woke up and sometime after Archie’s run, and Jughead tried to see her shadow through the warm glow of the closed curtains. He didn’t catch it.

 

He wondered if she was okay, if Archie had told Betty yet, that he had gone running back to Veronica as soon as Ms. Lodge said fetch. Was that his cue to remind Archie he needed to tie off the loose ends before someone got hurt, before Betty got hurt for the - taking her for granted for the nth time. “What about Betty?” His palms itched to wrap around his best friend’s throat. 

 

The redhead had the nerve to look confused. “What about her?” 

 

“I thought,” he trailed off, feeling confused himself, quashing it when he reminded himself how unintentionally oblivious Archie could be, especially where Betty’s feelings were concerned. 

 

“That was nothing,” Archie confessed. “I mean, she kind of shot me down which was a good thing in the end. I think I was just confused.”

 

“Yeah,” Jughead breathed relief. “You haven’t been in the best headspace.” 

 

“Who told you anyway? Did Betty say something?” Jughead wondered if he sensed something hopeful about Archie’s curiosity? Or if his insecurities inferred the worst for him?

 

“No.” He shouldered around Archie to get to the sock drawer. “So you and Veronica?” 

 

For the rest of the morning, he listened to Archie wax love about Veronica, a little awed the redhead could bounce back so easily from what happened just last night. 

 

He kept Jughead up late regaling the showdown with the Black hood in Pickens Park, then later on the Sweetwater Bridge, yet the redhead still managed to wake up at five in the morning for his standard three mile run. That night, he wanted to ask about Betty, but he ended up falling asleep somewhere near the end of the story, at the point when Archie set the scene at the sheriff’s station, describing the look on Fred’s face, on Alice’s.

Jug dreamed about having a sleepover with Betty in the treehouse, a stakeout of the Cooper house using her father’s hunting binoculars. They were young again, wrapped up in a nest of sleeping bags and surplus military blankets from his dad. He dreamed someone was climbing the treehouse steps, and while Betty monitored the Cooper dollhouse, Jug peered over the edge of the platform to see a man in a black hood scaling the side of their tree with a hunting knife in his hand. Right before the man reached the platform, the blade edge peeking over the side, Jughead reached for Betty looking the wrong way through the binoculars, and he woke up to find Archie gone, his running shoes and hoodie with him.

It felt like someone shoved Jughead through a meat grinder, and when he checked himself in the mirror, he spotted the beginnings of a shiner on his cheekbone. When Archie asked in passing that morning, Jughead said he took a basketball to the face in PE the day before. 

He decided to walk to school, too. The snow hadn’t stuck yet, but the roads were too slushy to attempt the motorcycle. Rounding the block at the intersection of Elm and Walnut, he gets her text to meet him in the  _ Blue and Gold  _ before first period.

He stands up, pushing the seat back with too much force, and it goes careening towards the back of the office, striking the edge of one of the desks and tipping over. He checks the time again, the clock above the door ticking away. Ten minutes until first bell, Betty is a no show.

He walks to the back of the office to retrieve her chair. Putting it upright, he leaves the chair there. Through the hedges lining the back windows, he can see students starting to swarm inside the quad. He can hear them.

His shoulder tweaks when he throws the knife across the office. It sticks in the murder board with a satisfying thwack. He rolls his shoulder, didn’t mean to throw it with so much force, skims his hand across the butterfly bandages to make sure they are still in place. As he passes her desk, he sends the sheaf of newspapers scattering across the floor, his whole arm sweeping across her desktop, taking the pens, the calendar, old drafts with them. He nearly upturns the entire desk, but stops himself, kicking aside the papers and pens to get to the murder board.

Eight minutes until first period, he shimmies the switchblade from the murder board, lodged in a photograph of suspect number two – Tom Keller. Up close, he notices there are a still a few of his notes left from the beginning of their investigation, his slanted script on some of the index cards. There are more now, a larger number of suspects.

Whoever tried to strangle him last night had all ten fingers, and Mr. Svenson died with nine confirmed.

He goes over the names of those Betty suspects most with their proximity to the victims’ names. It is their method, and he swallows against the tension in his chest, his throat. Her top two suspects are Sheriff Keller and the newly deceased Joseph Svenson, formerly Conway. She has other side notes about potentials from the Southside, given the decades-old animosity between the Northside and the Southside, the hypocrisies there.

Sheriff Keller was the one who shot Joseph Conway on the bridge. As far as Jughead knows, Keller has all ten fingers. And Keller was out and about last night. He fits the physical profile. He even fits the psychological one to some extent. Even Betty supposes the Black Hood might be law enforcement with a grudge. That drug dealer was killed in the police station with half a dozen deputies in the building.

Five minutes before the first bell, Jughead knows something isn’t right. He desperately wants her to walk through that door right now. He wants to know she is okay. But another part of him hopes she never walks through that door again. Some part of him wants so badly, so horribly, to just lock her up in that house, in that room, until – until what. Nothing feels settled. Mr. Svenson on the coroner’s table right now, and nothing feels finished.

He knows things are getting worse inside his head. He has felt like this before, the summer everything fell apart. He isn’t so myopic that he cannot sense his own instability, fingering the mark the blade left behind in Tom Keller’s image. He creates more problems than he solves. His problems are a visible presence on his person – Penny’s nails carving along his jawline, some murderer’s fingers branded on his throat, the missed calls from his father on his phone. And is it really all outside his control or is it something he creates for himself? Is it something he invites upon himself? He feels he set something in motion all those months ago, and he will pay for it forever.

He wants her to walk through that door and maybe then the mess of his life would magically spring back into place as it always seems to when she is around, like a shattered magnet finding its center again. If he could just put the pieces back together again, they would hold and no one would be able to tell the difference. No one would be able to tell he was broken.

 

She could walk through that door, and he would lock it behind her, press her back into the marbled glass, declare that she is his, he is hers, and it would be that simple. 

_ Is that fair, Jones _ ? His father in his ear, dragging her through the mess of his life. Wasn’t this all for her anyway, in the beginning? He trusted the ends would justify the means, but the means might break them both. He suddenly realizes everything hurts. His body aches, like all the seams are coming apart at once. 

The first bell rings and she never comes. Somehow he is so thankful he could cry.

* * *

 

**December 2017**

**Jughead**

**Paul Is Alive by EL VY**

“Jones.”

House key between thumb and forefinger, he stops on the last step to the trailer door. “Hey,” he greets Toni Topaz, turning to open the front door. “I’m just here to grab something quick. I have somewhere to be.” Pinning the Pop’s takeout bag between his elbow and stomach, he jiggles the key in the lock when he feels the metal porch shift. Either she is heavier than she looks or this thing has been ready to come down for a while, he thinks.

He spies his neighbor Mr. Green smoking a cigarette on his front lawn, notes the snake curling around the knuckles of his right hand while he pets his pit. The Kowalskis unload groceries from their beater Ford, Coy Kowalski watching them sidelong as his wife places bags in his hands.

“I got a call from Mia,” she says just as he gets the door unlocked, her opening statement for the Sunnyside court of public opinion.

With one foot in the door, he leans against the door jamb towards Toni perched below him.  _ Jesus, news travels quick in this podunk _ , he marvels to himself, peeking inside the check the clock above the front door. He needs to be at the Andrews in less than an hour for Secret Santa, the only reason he came to the trailer.

“Yeah? Is she okay?” He means it. Forcing himself not to look back at the diner, he left her with a melted milkshake and a wad of cash that might be too much responsibility for a fifteen-year-old, hopes she omitted that part during her phone call with Topaz.

“You told her not to join the Serpents.” This is her first piece of evidence.

Jughead’s gaze skirts across the trailer park. Coy walks unhurriedly over to Mr. Green, bums a cigarette. They smoke in silent camaraderie, staring at Toni, at him. “Can we go inside to talk about this?”

Toni crosses her arms, remains on the first step.

“Jesus, Toni, I told her she had options. There’s a difference,” he argues.

“Eventually she won’t have options.”

“That’s an awful way to look at the world.” Mr. Green’s pit barks at them, and Green snaps his fingers for her to go under the trailer.

“It’s realistic, Jug,” Toni contends. “You just don’t get it, do you? And maybe it’s because no one’s explained it to you yet, but the same rules do not apply. The Serpents respect your dad. That’s one of the only reasons they don’t bother you, especially about joining. And Tall Boy wants to keep you out honestly. He’d never admit it, but it works better for him. But Mia? She’s a target. She should join, prove her loyalty.”

He jerks the front door closed, drops the bag of takeout to rest on the top step, and marches down the steps, the whole metal platform shuddering under his boots. “Yeah and get up on that stage? A fifteen-year-old girl?”

Chastened for a moment, she contends, “We can work around that.”

“How old were you, Toni?” He knows. He was there. Playing PacMan with Sweet Pea on a Friday night when she climbed onto that stage and stripped while men three times her age watched, his father included. And while Sweet Pea quickly lost interest in their PacMan marathon, whooping and hollering at the free show, Jughead felt sick to his stomach. He stopped playing video games at the Wyrm for a month after that, and he couldn’t look his father in the eye for longer still, couldn’t remove the image of his dad draping a naked teenage girl in leather afterwards. “Would you have joined if you had a choice?” He wonders privately when he will run out of options himself.

“I don’t know. I don’t look at the world that way, in what-ifs,” she maintains, uncrossing her arms. “But community is important, Jones. Sometimes it’s all you have. Or maybe you’ve been living on the Northside too long.”

He rolls his eyes at her as his phone rings. It’s Betty. 

“But then, you have more important things to think about than community, huh, Jones,” she bites, regarding his phone, the girl on the other end that monopolizes his thoughts, his attentions, every other action in her service when he isn’t cleaning up debts to his father, to this community that always manages to suck him back inside the bullshit.

“Are we done here?” he asks, trying to be polite before he takes the call.

She leaves him on his porch steps with a flip of her hair, marching across the muddy trailer park, past Mr. Green and Coy Kowalski on their second cigarette each. He wants to flip them both the bird, but presses the call button instead as he clips back up the trailer steps. Balancing the phone on his shoulder, he scoops up the greasy paper bag and stumbles into the trailer, stomping his boots on the worn welcome mat, struggling to forget about Toni, Mia, the petty politics of treason by proxy and necessary cruelties of gang initiations.

“Hey, what’s up?” He cringes at the artificial chirp in his tone, slams the trailer door behind him.

“Hey, you.” He picks up his own personal lilt in there, the affection she reserves for him. “Just checking in. I’m going to be a little late to Secret Santa. My last session got out late.” He glances at the clock. He’s going to be late, too, tells her not to worry about it.

“I just,” she starts, hesitating for a moment.

He prompts her for more, heading for the bedroom to retrieve the presents. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay, you know, after.”

After their last scene. He touches his cheekbone. She was careful not to leave a mark. There is a small scab on the edge of his ear where she nicked him good, though, but that has been a pleasant reminder, like she always has his ear.

“Are you? Okay?” It is painfully adorable, attentive, he thinks, thinking maybe he should find her now, show her just how okay he is, how much he appreciates her attentions.

“I’m great, Betty,” he admits, and he is, despite what just transpired on his porch steps, something he might have to answer for later with Tall Boy. Nothing about that was discrete, but it doesn’t take much for him to feel it, good, great. She is enough.

“Good, me too. It was.” She searches for the right word. “Intense. I don’t think it’s been that intense before.”

“I cannot agree more,” he concurs, recalling he stashed her present in the hall dresser. 

 

She hums happily over the receiver, and it thrills at the base of his ribcage. Rubbing at the million little somethings rolling around in his gut, he thinks he could make a recording of that sound and live inside it. What happened two nights ago could not be replicated. With every new admission, expecting her to finally say when, and then she is drawing him closer, eyes open. He is alone in the dark of the cramped trailer hallway, but she is here in his ear to remind him.  _ You’re not a monster, Jug _ . Everything he needed. She always manages to tell him exactly what he needs to hear. Dealing with Mustang’s daughter, Toni just moments ago, it felt easier because he had her, his Betty to remind him.  _ Even if I am a monster, I’m your monster _ .

“Um, in other news,” she transitions. “I wanted to know if you wanted to spend Christmas Eve with me. It will be all girls, heads up, except for Dagwood, if he counts.” He can practically hear the eye roll that comes when she says the baby’s name. She never says his name with irony, though, even though he will be the first one to admit how silly it sounds but no better than the real thing. Maybe Dagwood needs a nickname, too. 

 

“I’ll make those molasses gingerbread cookies you love. I’ll even use the Christmas cookie cutters, vanilla frosting and all.” He still finds it adorable she bribes him with food. With or without it, he would still say yes. The food is merely a bonus.

He finds her present in the first drawer. “Count me in,” he consents, lifting the small box wrapped in red paper, the color she wears in secret.

* * *

 

**December 2016**

**Betty**

**Sentimentalist by Sondre Lerche**

Leaving the bathroom, she first notices the cold draft plucking at her freshly washed skin, her still dripping hair. The curtains sway across the bench-seat cushion marked with recent scuffs. Her mother dressed her down after he marked up the last one, and she will have to find upholstery cleaner for the new ones.“You know it’s more polite to use the front door. Or maybe just call, text?” 

He laughs, maybe surprised that she isn’t. She grew up letting Archie and Jughead come and go into her house as they pleased. “Like Alice would let me through the door without a thorough bend and spread?” He stands by her vanity mirror, straightening a brown paper package to line up with the corners. She can make out his slanted scrawl across the front. 

“Why? Are you packing?” She counters. He sounds like he is in a good mood, laughing. She hasn’t heard him laugh in weeks. 

He laughs again self-consciously, twisting on his heels towards the mirror. Her heart twists with him. “Not tonight,” he jokes in return. Or she thinks he jokes. 

“How’d you get the ladder?” Her mother locks the garage now. She wonders off hand why he didn’t close the window like usual.

“I used Fred’s,” he explains simply, does a turnabout the images scattered around the edges of her vanity mirror. She watches him finger the photograph of their summer before freshman year, studying the untouched happiness on their collective faces, how distant it feels now, how she can barely remember that girl in the photo let alone the boy that wrestled away from her. Even though he is here in her room, she can feel him wrestling away from her now, can see it in the twisting of his heel against the carpet, the anxious flicker of his fingers along the edge of the photograph like he wants to tear it down, tear them all down. He is still wearing his shoes.

He leaves the mural of photographs alone and takes a seat on her bedspread. “A little birdie told me you and Archie caught the Hood.” He sits with his hands clasped between his knees, tapping his heel sporadically, no rhyme or reason to the timing.

She rounds the vanity, brushing her fingers across the brown paper package, the characteristic shape of a book. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there in the  _ Blue and Gold _ . Something came up with Veronica. I should’ve texted you.” Missing her meeting with him and rest of classes, she hoped to catch him at Secret Santa that afternoon, but he failed to show up, much to Kevin’s chagrin.

He shrugs it off, but she can tell he might still harbor some leftover resentment at being stood up. “I’m --,” he starts but stutters and stops, smiling awkwardly at his fumble. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” She thinks about kissing him. Things make more sense inside her head when she kisses him. 

“Is that what you came for?” To make sure she was okay, just to check up on her. She hopes maybe this will be the moment, her hope growing when he finally unzips his jacket, gets a little more comfortable. He scratches under his chin, and she sees it, two angry streaks across his jawline, nail marks. Lower still the beginnings of fingerprints on his throat. “Jesus, Jug, what happened?”

The mattress dips with their off-balance weight, but Betty shifts closer, reaching to touch the bruises forming on his neck. “I’m okay, Betty.” He grabs her hand before she can, replacing it in her lap. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She wants to. She wants to talk about everything. She needs to. She needs to fix them. Maybe then she can fix herself. 

“I missed Secret Santa.” His excuse for surreptitiously slipping into her room at nine o’clock at night. Kevin is still bitter that Jughead missed Secret Santa and left him present-less. Jughead leaves her on the bed to grab the present off her vanity.

“Why? You didn’t get me. Archie did.” And Archie’s present was so sweet.

On the way back, he drops the present, quickly bending to pick it up. “No, but I wanted to give it to you then.” She got him something, too, peeking out from under the ruffled bed skirt right by her feet. 

“Where were you?” She has asked him this question in some form or another at least half a dozen times in the last few weeks. None of the answers have been particularly descriptive or illuminating.

“It doesn’t matter.” So, he decides to keep with the theme. At least he is consistent, she thinks.

When he reseats himself next to her, keeping a safe distance that makes her think of those dance posters that request couples leave room for the holy spirit, she instantly scoots closer as if on instinct. “You sure you want to go with that?”

He shrugs and it goes right into her. She clenches her jaw, wanting to yell at him. “Okay, Jughead, you can keep playing it close to your chest, but I am calling your bluff.” Betty calls it showing her hand, placing one on his knee, and he flinches. She pulls it away quickly like she burned him. He drops the package again but leaves it there on the carpet at their feet.

“The Black Hood told me to break up with you,” she confesses, staring at his gift on the floor of her bedroom, bare inches from the box under the bed. It feels like something gives just a little inside her chest, and the next breath comes a little easier.

“Good.”

She double-takes. “What?” Just like that, her insides wind back up.

“Maybe he was right.”

“Why would you think that?” Something doesn’t feel right, she realizes. There is something missing. She looks down at the bare space between them, only six inches, and somehow it stretches into an abyss, amplified in her mind like her worst fears.

“Think about it, Betty,” he starts, scooping up the package he dropped as he stands, tossing the gift behind him onto the bedspread like it is anything else, any other book. “Things haven’t exactly been Candyland between us, even before you broke up with me.”

_ Candyland? _ Idyllic, sweet, a foreseeable happy ending, she ticks off inside her head. “But, Juggie, I want to be with you,” she tries, ignoring all the gremlins in her head whispering that maybe he is right. Things haven’t been easy, true, but she is not Archie, damn it, she doesn’t want easy. She doesn’t need easy or perfect or even sweet. She is none of these things either. She just wants him.

“You shouldn’t.” It’s like a punch. He is on his knees, crouching in front of her with his hands on her bare knees. She wants to grab him by the hair and kiss him bruised, make him stop talking like this. They said they could walk it back. He wanted to walk it back. He said so. “I hurt people, Betty. Isn’t that what you said? You were worried about me joining the Serpents and hurting people. Well, I do it on my own. I’ll hurt you.”

She reaches for his cheek to tell him no, he won’t. He would never. But, he ducks his face away.

This close, she can see more definition to his hurts, the angry scratches under his chin, the purple fingerprints on his throat. Someone hurt him, but then she wonders what he did in return. She wonders who started it. She wonders if that matters.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done, Betty?”

_ I sent Nick St. Claire to his death _ . “Jughead, please.” She doesn’t want to think about this, but she can feel the unease creeping back into her chest, the panic setting in, her breath hitching.  She wants to ask him to hold her again, do that thing he is so good at, make it go away.

“If I did join the Serpents, then what? Would you still be with me? Could you still be with me? Even if I was hurting people, dealing drugs, guns?” She wants to say he wouldn’t do those things. He isn’t that person. But, maybe she is wrong. Maybe she’s been wrong for a while. About him. About herself.

Everything feels unbelievably wrong, surreal. Her body doesn’t feel like her own. She wants to lean into him and feel like herself again. He leans forward on his own, and she feels his lips on her temple, his hands holding her steady by the shoulders. “Betty, please don’t cry.” Her fingers find his jacket, tangling up in the soft white sherpa and wrenching him forward. “Betty, baby,” he tries, gently prying her hands away, slipping his thumbs across her palms to keep her nails out of her skin.

“It’s just temporary,” she states, more to herself than him. “You said we could walk it back.” Walk it back and the violence stops. 

“I was stupid. Things aren’t that simple.”

“Yes, they are.” Her demon is dead. She can wrestle his, too. “Please, I can handle it. Whatever it is, just let me handle it,” she says, feeling like she is coddling herself, not him. “If you want to join them, I won’t stop you, Jughead. I’ll support you, I promise. If it’s something you have to do. I’m sorry. I should’ve trusted you. I shouldn’t’ve cut you off because some psychopath told me to. I should’ve been honest. Jughead, I’m so sorry. I won’t do it again.” She realizes she is rambling, but the words come out like vomit, her mouth on autopilot while her brain short circuits.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he assures her, so fucking kind.

“Then, why are you leaving me?”  _ Don’t leave. I’ll be good _ . 

He looks up at her like she is some rare bird that he can only look at from a distance, that he can only appreciate from across the chasm. And somehow she hears it though he doesn’t say it, those words. She wants to tell him she is right here, reachable, available, that she isn’t perfect either, that she loves him, too. 

“I want you safe, Betty,” he says like a vow, squeezing her hands, pressing his lips to her forehead. Then, he is gone, taking all that nervous chuckle and cutting sardonicism and blind adoration with him, and leaving her to feel like a flawless ballerina in a closed music box, a silent ideal suspended in a dark place with no one to move her, no one to inspire her, no one to love her.

 

When he leaves, she thinks it cuts both ways, trying to protect him and forfeiting it all in the process, thinks she has been systematically sabotaging herself the entire time, cultivating her trademark self-loathing, like a snake eating its own tail.  

She doesn’t remember when she started crying, and only recognizes it when she wipes her eyes and they come away wet. There are smears of blood on her palms, and there must be blood on his hands, too. She hopes he will never wash it off. She wants a part of herself stained on his person, permanent. Her gaze falls on the brown paper package on her pink bedspread. She never got the chance to give him his gift, she thinks, her heels clipping the box under the bed.

She rips the brown paper off the cover of  _ Beloved _ , a first edition. His thoughtful annotations tiny in the margins, wobbly underlines with ballpoint and faded highlighting, a rare glimpse into his mind. And it is there, plain for her to see, that she is just as untouchable and haunted, by her dead specter, by something darker.

* * *

 

 

**December 2017**

**Betty**

**Christmas Time is Here Again by My Morning Jacket**

Betty places the platter of gingerbread cookies in front of him at the kitchen counter like an apology, a very melt-in-your-mouth delicious apology by the look on his face even if he still seems a little sore about her inviting Cheryl Blossom to Christmas Eve. He doesn’t have a right to be, she reminds herself, but hopes the cookies help. 

 

She waits until he is on his third cookie to start her formal plea. “I know I should have warned you about Cheryl, but I wasn’t sure she would actually show up.” 

 

And show up, she did, with a fully decorated Christmas tree to replace the already resplendent one Alice Cooper put up two weeks ago and a mound of ornately wrapped gifts piled into a top-of-the-line double-stroller. Betty is willing to bet she only brought gifts for the twins, not even a bottle of wine for the Cooper’s hospitality.

“It’s – I already asked Polly, and she was okay with it.” Because honestly her sister’s opinion mattered most. “She hasn’t even met the twins yet, and they’re her niece and nephew, Jughead.” They are all she has left of Jason, she doesn’t say. Besides it was a promise she left unfulfilled for far too long. Even Cheryl seemed surprised by the invite.

“It’s okay, Betty,” he assures her over his fifth cookie. “I’m not mad, really. Excellent cookies, by the way. It’s otherworldly what you do with baked goods.”

“Butter and sugar can make anything taste divine, Juggie,” she explains, taking a couple for herself before he demolishes the whole platter.

 

“You joke Betty, but your cookies make me feel closer to god.” 

 

_ Says the atheist _ , she comments to herself. The wry loaded look on his face, though, has her pushing playfully at his shoulder. 

She changes the subject, figuring all is forgiven. There has been something she has needed to address since he came over Friday in the middle of the night. “How was your dad?” Because she knows he hasn’t gone to visit his dad since before summer, since before the incident. She wants to know if he went visit him to talk about what happened to Mustang.

“He’s fine.” And that’s it. Nothing more. He leaves the counter to go pour himself a glass of milk, and she thinks it is an evasive maneuver.

One of the babies squeals with glee from the living room where Cheryl sits on the carpet with them, opening presents and playing with their contents. It is the first time Betty has ever seen Cheryl sit on a floor. She rarely does it. It’s uncommon even during Vixens practice, and only if she is wearing track pants and long-sleeves and only briefly if it is part of the choreography. 

“That’s it?”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging, pouring the milk. He asks if she wants some, and she nods. He goes to retrieve another glass. “What else is there? We played a few games of cribbage. I told him how school was going, how Fred was, and that’s it. Everyday stuff.”

“Nothing about the dead guy and the Serpents, then?”

He spills milk on the counter next to her glass, curses. “I mean, yeah, we touched on that. And then we moved on.”

“Juggie,” she starts, considering her words. She has been mulling on this thought for a while, since before Friday night, since her last session with Dr. Glass and her sit down with Veronica, that maybe yes, she does have a blind spot for Jughead. And maybe he has one where his dad is concerned. “Do you think maybe you should take a step back from them, the Serpents?” He hasn’t formally joined. She thinks she would have noticed a new tattoo on his person. She hopes he would mention it before showing up looking thoroughly beaten in.

“What do you mean?” He cleans up the spill, walks back over with their glasses.

“I mean, maybe you need to take a break. With what just happened, maybe you could just take a breath, stop doing favors for a while. This was more than an odd job, Jug. You found a dead body. You implicated yourself.” She reminds herself it isn’t the first time, but really their teenage body count should stop at some point.

He appears to seriously consider it. He seems so tired lately, more so than usual. And his exhaustion has made her exhausted. He is a natural born insomniac, but this is something new, at least for her. “Do you really think I should?”

“Yes,” she affirms. “I really think you should. Not forever. Just for a little while until you feel like you’re ready to go back to it. I know it helps with things, the medical bills, the trailer, your dad, but you need a break.”

“We need a break, huh?” He reaches for her hand, gives it a quick, reassuring squeeze. She links her fingers with his to keep him there. “Besides, I just paid off my hospital bill, so we’re square on that.” So, he must have gotten something in the Mustang debacle.

“That should be a load off for Fred,” she reasons, taking a small bite of her cookie.

“Actually, it didn’t go over too well,” he informs her. “I couldn’t exactly tell him where I got the money, and he wasn’t too pleased about that. He thinks I’m doing illegal stuff for my dad.” Which he is, she concludes, like illegal disposal of a body and failing to notify the authorities of said body and accepting  _ hush  _ money to keep quiet about it. “All the more reason to take a step back, though, right?”

She lifts the last half of her cookie to his mouth, and he eats it in one bite, his teeth catching her fingertips, playful nips. She has to be careful around that mouth. They didn’t call him Great White in middle school for nothing. She kisses the nick on his ear in return, and he tilts his head towards her, reaching for the curve where her neck meets her shoulder.

“Betty!” Cheryl calls from the living room. “Please grab that little idiot before she self-immolates!”

Betty kisses Jughead on his cheek full with cookie. “Duty calls.”

Betty takes a seat on the floor across from Cheryl, running interference with Juniper who seems intent on crawling into the lit fireplace. She settles the squirming infant in her lap, asks about Polly and her mother. 

“Pollykins and Alice are in the attic finding old things for the twins as if I haven’t,” Cheryl gestures at the gifts littering the living room floor. “You will want for nothing,” she declares, cradling Dagwood in her lap.

“They look just like us when we were babies,” Cheryl notes, smoothing the red wisp across Dagwood’s soft skull. “It’s almost like déjà vu.”

“I’m sorry it took so long to set this up,” Betty apologizes, watching Cheryl smell Dagwood’s head, leaving a cherry red imprint of her lips on his baby fat cheek.

“I thought you never would,” Cheryl figures, being honest. “But, you did. Betty Cooper keeps her debts. Just know I had something planned for you if you never followed through.”

Betty laughs at the threat, most likely not empty. Juniper starts to babble incessantly and she pats her palm gently against the baby’s mouth to make her warble. The infant devolves into hiccupping giggles and grabs at Betty’s hand.

Cheryl hugs Dagwood close, smells his head again and smiles. “Maybe we’ll do it right this time.”

“What do you mean?” Juniper studies Betty’s palm, running her teeny fingers over the crescent scars.

“Maybe they’ll get it right where we failed. Aren’t children supposed to be like a clean slate? Don’t we hope they won’t make the same mistakes?” Cheryl explains, holding a small Blossom red onesie up to Dagwood to make sure it will fit.

_ Don’t we always think that _ , Betty wonders, looking at the row of photographs on the fireplace mantle, the last picture of her family whole. Her mother hasn’t taken it down yet. A row of perfect plastic Cooper smiles. Somehow her father’s comes off as the most genuine of the bunch because she thinks he wanted it more than their mother, the flawless façade of their white-picket family. He was willing to manipulate and kill to retain that vision.

Betty sees Jughead standing in the kitchen watching them, watching Cheryl specifically, with little Dagwood, her cherry red lips pressed to the infant’s dusting of ginger hair, and he frowns, unblinking. When he sees Betty looking, he seems to snap out of it, asks them if they want egg nog. She shakes her head,  _ no, thanks. _

“Come here,” she beckons, reaching her hand out to him standing in the dim of the kitchen while she sits in the firelight with Cheryl and the twins in a nest of vibrant red wrapping paper and scattered toys and baby clothes.

“Have you gone deaf, hobo?” Cheryl snipes. Dagwood coos in her arms.

“I forgot something at home,” he says suddenly, turning towards the backdoor.

“Jug!” She calls, hearing the door slam closed.

Cheryl  _ hmms _ and continues playing with Dagwood. The baby shrieks with glee when she tickles him in his soft potbelly. Like it is a secret, Cheryl whispers to Betty, “I don’t think he’s spoken to me since I hit him last year. Like, get over it, it’s not my fault you’re a bleeder.” 

 

He was fine just moments ago in the kitchen. He seemed okay; he said as much. 

 

Though he rarely interacted one-on-one with Cheryl, Betty cannot recall the last time he expressed at least his intense dislike of their red-headed teenage despot to her holier-than-thou face. In private, he readily dished out biting quips when Betty would vent about a particularly savage Vixens practice, but she cannot remember the last time Jughead was in a room with Cheryl Blossom. She cannot cite the last time he showed up to a Bulldogs match. And maybe she just chalked it up to the fact that Cheryl took every opportunity to belittle him when he was misfortunate enough to stumble into her blue-blooded presence, or because Jughead was a self-professed misanthrope who despised athletics and the crowds they drew. 

 

But that face - that was the face he made when he confessed that he might have gotten someone killed. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I made a bet with myself back in chapter four that I would attempt to write an entire chapter without anything too sexually explicit, just some over-the-clothes stuff, and then that turned into three chapters. Somebody hide my literary chastity belt. It's very uncomfortable. 
> 
> Also, as a preemptive strike, the next chapter may not come out until late August. I may piece it together prior to then (because it is a serious form of stress relief), but for the moment, my attentions are squared on this conference talk coming up. However, once the conference is over, both my stress level and preoccupation with serious career stuff will lighten up. At least for a time.


	8. follow the sound of the owl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to my trusty betas _heartunsettledsoul_ and _imserpentking_! Many thanks again and again!
> 
> Okay, now. Activate illogical but convenient time jump!

**March 2017**

**Jughead**

**Shade of Blue by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club**

 

Was it only a distraction that night?

 

Staring up at the blushing pink sky, like it is embarrassed for him, he wonders who was the intended target, Archie, himself, or Betty. This crossed his mind just before the chrome bumper connected with his back tire.  

 

He is sure he’s getting eaten by mosquitoes but still uncertain whether he should move because he was also pretty sure he felt something shift in his lower back when he made contact with the ground. Feeling the concrete on his elbows, he must have slid far enough to erode through the denim and flannel, slid and then rolled, if the hurt on his jaw and cheekbone are anything to go by.

 

He can hear the wheedling of the mosquitoes in his ear, probably breeding in the grassy ditch on this backwoods country road. Dragonflies drone by, snatching them up, and he remembers what Betty taught him, that they feed while flying by grabbing prey with their legs, but they cannot walk. All those legs and they can’t walk. _They’re like the great white sharks of the insect world_ , she joked. _Just like you, insatiable_. Shit, he’s going to be late for their tutoring session.   

 

_What day is it?_ March 15th, the ides, ironically. _Where are you?_ Route 18 on the way back from Shankshaw Prison visiting his dad. _What happened to you?_ Someone in a chintzy restored fire-engine red Ford coupe ran him off the road. They didn’t stick around, though. As soon as Jug’s wheels left the pavement, the coupe was gone, squealing around the next corner onto a dirt road to nowhere.

 

He reaches into his jacket pocket. The screen is cracked but the phone glows to life when he swipes right for an emergency call. Archie is still number two on his speed dial.

 

Archie picks up on the fifth ring sounding winded. “What’s up, Jughead?” Someone murmurs behind him and Archie covers the receiver, but he can hear the obviously feminine tones, the tinkling laugh. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

 

“Well, stop fucking your girlfriend and come pick me up. Bring the truck.” He is pretty positive the bike will not run, turning his head to see it keeled over on its side, missing a side-view mirror, and leaking something onto the pavement, looking just as pitiful and beat-up as he feels. “And the ramp.”

 

“Say please, Juggles,” Veronica sing-songs from the background.

 

_Juggles_. Like a clown. He sucks his teeth. “I crashed my bike by Wyndham farm. I’m not–” He rolls his ankles slowly, first one and then the other. The other screams at him. “I’m not sure I can walk it.”

 

He can already hear Archie shuffling out of the bed, the soft thud of a pillow hitting him when Veronica realizes she will not be receiving her happy ending. “Yeah, I’ll be there as soon as I can, Jug. Stay there.”

 

Archie hangs up, and Jughead looks at the time. Yeah, he’ll be late for tutoring with Betty, and he has a shift at the Bijoux tonight. He is scheduled to train her brother Chic at the concessions counter. He swipes right again to call Betty, his thumb reaching for the one, but the light of the screen flickers and then dies. _Goddamnit_.

 

He needs to get out of the middle of the road.

 

* * *

 

 

**March 2017**

**Betty**

**Owl by She Keeps Bees**

Betty proofreads the new _Dear Ethel_ column for the _Blue and Gold_ and thinks about placing it next to the full-page advert for Blossom Maple Syrup. She knows she would never hear the end of it from both of them – Cheryl for putting her on Ethel’s level and Ethel for overshadowing her decidedly milquetoast cereal-box advice on how to handle unresponsive members on a classroom group project. It made for a bland read from week to week, and Veronica joked about sending a letter asking how to deal with a repeat ‘sexter,’ just to see where _Dear Ethel_ would take it, just to watch the hamster run that wheel so Betty could ignore her own. _Probably straight to Principal Weatherbee_ , Betty decided and called it a no-go despite her own mean-spirited curiosity.

 

She checks her watch, glances at the door, the blank corkboards along the front wall. It is fifteen minutes past but he usually shows up a little late, never with an excuse.

 

She has been tutoring him in biology since he failed last semester, an inevitability given he missed half the classes.

 

Principal Weatherbee sat them both down in a joint meeting with Dr. Phylum and Fred. Because Betty happened to be on the list of available tutors and worked on the _Blue and Gold_ with Jughead at some point, Weatherbee assigned him to Betty under threat of suspension and, given his subpar performance in other classes, possibly being held back a year. Conscious of Jughead’s conspicuous dislike of the general student body, Weatherbee hoped he might tolerate Betty best of all the tutors on the list, the admittedly short list of willing and free student tutors. And Fred, well, he was the final nail in the coffin for Jughead.

 

She suspects he is missing at least half the classes this semester, too, but his grades say otherwise. Maybe her tutoring is working. Or maybe he has been sandbagging the whole time.

 

So, he tolerates her. He shows up for tutoring. And sometimes he talks to her between classes, but only if Archie is present, only in passing, only in group conversation at lunch, if he shows up. 

 

Veronica asked one time, _what the hell happened_? And Betty told her the simple truth. They broke up.

 

‘Were you ever together?’

 

‘For like a second,’ Betty joked and left it there. He has not missed a tutoring session, though. Yet.

 

“Sorry I’m late.” Jerking her out of her thoughts with a yank of the chair, the legs skidding along the floor, he falls into the seat next to her. “I lost my phone.”

 

She scrambles for the study materials piled on the edge of the desk, her chapter outlines from last semester, her annotated and tabbed textbook. “You’re the one that failed biology, so it’s on you, Jug,” she says, flipping open the binder full of her highlighted notes, complete with legends, finally turning her eyes on him, allowing herself the luxury. This is her only chance to look.  

 

He looks like someone dragged him behind the back of a truck. “I just didn’t want you to feel like you’re wasting your time,” he responds quietly, leaning over the desk to reach for the textbook, and she sees the holes in his denim jacket near the elbows, tar-black scuffs. “And you know, I don’t want you reporting me to Weatherbee.”

 

“Jesus, Jughead, what happened?” It has been so quiet lately, mercifully, and yet he always manages to trip into something, eventually.

 

He skims to their current chapter in the textbook, Mendelian genetics. “I had an accident,” he brushes off, licking his forefinger to sift through the sections quicker, like he is making up for lost time. “Hydroplaned. It’s nothing serious.” He thumbs at the scrape on his jaw. “Can I borrow your phone?”

 

“Sure? Why?” She slides it across the desk towards him.

 

“I’m supposed to train your brother tonight, but I’m gonna be late, so I’m telling Ben to let the manager know,” he says, waiting for her to punch in the password, pretending not to look, like he hasn’t known it for the last five years. It hasn’t changed.

 

“We can cut it short today, Jug. I don’t want you to be late for work.” She assures him, “You know I wouldn’t rat you out to Weatherbee, right?”

 

“No, I have a test coming up,” he argues, scrolling through her contacts for Ben Button’s number. It reminds her that Riverdale is too small a town, that she has had Ben’s number in her phone since middle school from group projects and co-ed soccer, even if they haven’t exchanged more than two words since freshman year. No one can get away from each other. She is never more sure of that now with Jughead texting on her phone. 

 

He sends Ben a quick text and slides her phone back to her. “There, now we can study. You have my full attention, Ms. Cooper.” He peers at her outline, picking up where they left off on Punnett squares.  

 

Her fingers skim the scrape on his cheekbone, and he hisses, pulling away. “Damn it, Betty, what the hell?”

 

“Did you even clean it?” She can see tar-black in his cuts. Was he really that worried about her snitching to Weatherbee?

 

“Come on, Betts, I have places to be. Can we please?” He gestures at the binder of notes, flicks at the tabs sticking out from her textbook. Even through his exasperation, she catches the nickname.

 

“Okay, let’s compromise,” she tries, placing her hand flat on the textbook and standing up. “You’re going to let me clean you up while you work on these practice Punnett squares.” She lays the worksheet down in front of him. “Deal?”

 

“Might be a little distracting,” he reasons, leaning back in his chair and regarding her. Sometimes he reminds her of a stray dog she keeps dragging inside for a bath, a meal, a bed he refuses to sleep in. But, he hasn’t bitten her yet. “Might be a little painful.”

 

“Try,” she demands softly. _Just try, Jug_.

 

He mumbles _fine_ , picking up his pencil, huffing at the stray lock that always manages to slip from the top of his beanie and curl across his forehead. She desires to tuck it back, press her fingers to the worry lines above his eyebrows, but she lets him work quietly while she retrieves the first aid kit from the classroom across the hall.

 

When she comes back, he is pouring over the chapter notes, his pencil doodling crowns absentmindedly with a heavy hand in the margins of the worksheet. Her index finger lands square on the eraser, interrupting his angular haphazard doodling, his looping thoughts as he often wants to do when they study. He never gets smoothly from point A to point B before making the logical leap to point C, circling back to A over and over again like he feels he is always missing some piece of the puzzle. None of the squares are filled in.

 

He puts his pencil down, rubs at the abrasion on his jawline, and she swats his hand away. “You’ll make it worse.”

 

“It itches,” he complains.

 

He sucks his teeth when she dabs at his cuts with an isopropyl wipe. “Where were you?”

 

He immediately switches to defense, eyeing her hand swiping gently against his jaw. “What does that matter?”

 

“I meant on the worksheet, Jug,” she says with a smile. Scanning the worksheet, the first Punnett square is a question of simple complete dominance. Given the parental genotypes, what are the projected physical traits of the offspring and at what expected ratios. He just has to fill in the blanks.

 

“Okay, let’s say you are recessive for attached earlobes,” she says, making the point by gently tugging on one of his. “And I’m heterozygous dominant for unattached.” He glances at her ears, the sapphire studs, and she remembers what it felt like to have his teeth there, tugging. She swallows, continuing, wonders if he is thinking about the same thing. “Recessive is usually signified by lower case and dominant is upper case. Heterozygous means what?”

 

“You carry one dominant and one recessive allele,” he recalls, picking up his pencil and filling in the designations on the first square. She dabs antibiotic ointment on the tip of her finger, gently smears it into his cuts while overseeing his work.

 

“What does complete dominance mean?” She wonders as she peels open a Band-Aid.

 

“It means if you carry at least one dominant allele, you will express that trait, so you have unattached earlobes. I have two recessive copies of the allele, so I have attached earlobes.” He scribbles in their genotypes, deliberately ignoring her hands on him. She studies the bones in his face, looking for tension lines, but he seems relaxed for the most part, not like he just got thrown from a motorcycle. He doesn’t seem bothered by her touching him which is an improvement. “What about eyes?” He wonders offhand. 

 

Carefully affixing the Band-Aid over the scrape on his cheekbone, she explains that the genes determining eye color aren’t so straightforward. “Hair color, too.” She wants to ask him how he compartmentalizes himself so tightly, so efficiently, at least on the surface.

 

“Why?” He fills in the predicted genotypes of their children, starts interpreting them.

 

“More than one gene is involved.”

 

“What’s that called?”

 

“Polygenic,” she answers, pressing a second Band-Aid to the cut on his jawline. “Many traits are polygenic.” Looking at his results, she sees their children have a fifty-fifty chance of having his earlobes. It makes her wonder what their kids would look like in other areas, if they would get his black hair, her green eyes, and then she knows her face is hot, and he can see it.

 

He finishes the first Punnett square with full marks. She doodles a tiny happy face next to it with her purple pen, and he hides a dopey smile behind his palm. “Now finish the rest without looking at the notes. And no questions. You’re being graded.”

 

“You mean judged,” he alludes, smirking, filling in the next set of squares. For a moment, things feel okay. It only happens on Wednesdays around four-thirty.

 

* * *

 

**March 2017**

**Jughead**

**Bus Stop Boxer by the Eels**

 

He can’t get that purple wobbly smiley face off his mind, the sequence of tiny bangs she scribbled off to the side of each correct Punnett square. He feels like he is in elementary school again with a crush on the young teacher’s aid from Wisconsin who spent extra time to help him catch up with long-hand division because he missed too much school while his parents were on a bender in Atlantic City and they didn’t bus Southside kids to Riverdale Elementary yet. He can’t stop smiling even though it reminds him of the first time he ended up in a foster, but at least they kept him with Jellybean.

 

He only spent a couple weeks in the foster before Fred Andrews came to pick him up, and in another few weeks, he and Jellybean were back in the trailer, him on the pull-out, Jelly in the thrift-store crib that she managed to deconstruct on at least three occasions before she grew too big for it.

 

He spent a birthday with that foster, and it was the first birthday where no one broke any glass or put a cigarette out in the cake. And while it still felt like a forced celebration, at least it was mildly pleasant, and his foster parents were careful to make it all about him.

 

When he left two weeks later, he was surprised they let him keep the presents – a journal and a Batman Lego set. Those fosters noticed he was a storyteller before his parents even caught a hint of it years later. When his parents did finally figure it out, his mother told him it was because he was a liar, that liars told stories, made shit up. His father bought him a composition notebook and told him that his mother could shove it. _Right up her ass, Jughead_ , his father continued, slapping the notebook down into his nine-year-old hands.

 

Trying to recall the last time he sat in Pop’s and just busted out a chapter, he yanks open his work locker to the stench of stale popcorn and high fructose syrup, reminding him to wash his uniform. He doesn’t think he has written a single word since he quit the _Blue and Gold_.

 

Chic Cooper closes the door to the employee break room behind him. “They get a little rough with you?”

 

Jughead pulls his work polo over his head to cover up the scrape that runs from the top of his shoulder to the base of the blade. Looking at it earlier in the bathroom mirror, he wondered if he should at least get a checkup at the urgent care. His ankle cannot support his full weight, but he can still get around okay. “Who?”

 

“Whoever.”

 

After an adjustment period, Jug has become accustomed to this kid’s general lack of expression, but sometimes Chic’s flat affect is more than a little off-putting. It reminds him of Dilton Doiley, but even Doiley has a restrained nuance to his emotion, but that’s just it. At least Doiley has something going on inside, feelings Jug can get a bead on, while this guy – faceless. Jug gets a sense of the Cooper resemblance, but it was skewed somehow, and Jughead cannot tell whether the similarities are practiced or innate but dimmed by time and distance. Yes, the Coopers were a repressed breed and their masks were well-crafted, but this guy, he was some other beast altogether. The Coopers repressed something. This kid represses nothing, and Jughead thinks maybe there is nothing.

 

“No, I crashed my bike,” Jug explains, and Chic raises an eyebrow in interest, none of it well meaning. “The roads were wet.”

 

His coworker doesn’t say anything, takes a seat at the break table. Jug side-eyes him as he struggles with a Snickers bar wrapper before tearing it open with surprisingly sharp teeth, like shark teeth. He has the cool Cooper blue eyes, Alice’s unpleasant and perpetually displeased mouth, but almost noting of Hal. Nothing of Betty. 

 

Archie gave him the bare bones of the story. Apparently, Alice and Hal Cooper gave away some lovechild in high school, and over two decades later, Betty tracked the kid to a shady hostel in Centerville, saved him from a pimp. Chic did a stint at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, and Jughead wonders if Betty was mean enough to chastise her mother for sending Polly there to have the twins, a spiteful _I told you so_ to see where Chic ended up. The same fate could have come to the twins. 

 

That was second-hand from Archie as well. Polly had the twins in January, Jason’s twins, both red-headed carbon copies of another boy and girl, like cruel déjà vu Jughead hopes to never meet.

 

Alice’s good intentions towards her teenage indiscretions ended poorly for the kid. Jughead wonders if Betty’s intentions towards the same boy will end the same way. The road to hell is paved in them.

 

Jughead adjusts his nametag, licks away a spot of cherry cola over the _J_. “How did it go at the concession stand? Did Ben give you the run-down?”

 

Chic shews a bite of Snickers bar unhurriedly as he regards Jughead with that same nothingness. He swallows just as slowly, with no joy, and as Jughead watches his throat work over the well-chewed piece of chocolate, like watching a snake eat a rat, he wonders how the kid doesn’t choke. “It’s not rocket science,” Chic finally says.

 

Jughead slams his locker closed, latches the padlock and spins the numbers. “I forgot, you’ve worked in food service before, right?”

 

Chic smiles, and it slides slickly across his angular features, like someone opened his face with a knife. “Oh, don’t worry, Jughead, I know all about customer service.” 

 

* * *

 

 

**March 2018**

**Jughead**

**Length of Love by Interpol**

Never has he been more thankful she is wearing a skirt when he ambushes her in the _Blue and Gold_ between periods. Her books and binders thud to the ground, one landing on the toe of his boot, and he swallows his own groan of pain against her gasp of surprise by smashing their mouths together, pressing her back against the marbled glass.

 

Her hands are hesitant at his shoulders, but he decides for her, slotting his thigh between hers, his hands slipping under her skirt to brace the undersides of her thighs and hitch her forward. Her breath stutters when his thigh makes contact with the juncture between her legs. 

 

She rips her mouth from his, and he decides to busy himself down the line of her neck, sucking a mark where her collar ends. Her fingers are working insistently at the nape of his neck, nails digging when his teeth sink in a little deeper. She will have to slap a Band-Aid over it or everyone will know. Everyone will know who. And maybe at lunch he will subtly smudge away the foundation she uses to hide it, a seditious show of affection. Nothing anybody will read too much into, his hand curling around her shoulder to massage the tension knots like always, smoothing down her arm and leaving behind a bruise the size of a pucker, the point of his incisor a telltale mark along the purpling boundary.

 

“Have your way with me?” She whispers in his ear, her teeth finding the lobe peeking out from underneath his beanie. It is a combination of words that make his gut get tight, groaning at the possessive roll of her hips against his. Her nails streak down the back of his neck, something she knows now drives him wild, makes him feel like her dog.

 

He cants her hips forward so his fingers slip closer to her center, edging along the elastic of her panties and pinching them aside. There’s a little hum of anticipation in the back of her throat with the slightest brush of his fingertips against sensitive flesh. He is pleased to find she is already wet, eager to slide his fingers further, but he wants to play with the edge first.

 

She reaches for the lock, but he stops her, pinning her hand to the glass. He applies more pressure between her legs and issues a gently whispered chastisement in her ear if she tries again.

 

“This gets you off,” he murmurs, three fingers under her panties, two sliding through her folds, one tip curling just on the precipice. “The possibility of getting caught. Tell me you like it.”

 

Her nose knocks his as she reminds him they have class, even as he feels the muscles in her thighs clench around his own. The gentle rock of her hips must relieve some of the tension between her legs, a subtle insinuation of encouragement for him to go further. He draws her closer, her pelvic bone hard against his thigh, but it lets him slip one finger all the way inside, curling forward. This close he doesn’t miss the small whine she quickly smothers. 

 

“Do you like having control over me?” A steady question, quiet over the squeaking sneakers and idle chatter on the other side of the door, and his blood moves thick and contented even while he can feel her heart pulsing in her pussy.

 

Her hips tilt forward to give his hand better access, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t apply any more pressure, any more. Her free hand is tangled up in the shoulder of his jacket, twisting the denim. “Yes,” she finally admits when she figures out he won’t give her what she wants without a confession. 

 

With one slow stroke along the wall of her pussy, feeling her clench in anticipation, in dissatisfaction, he asks if she likes when he controls her. She presses herself down against his thigh, and he starts to relax the bend in his knee, taking away the pressure. She whines, the hand he has pressed against the glass closing in a fist. “Yes,” she manages.

 

He rewards her by releasing her hand, replacing his underneath her skirt to pitch her weight against him. Another finger slips inside, strokes lazily, and it is a relief and not enough, for both of them. Her lips are on his jaw, searching for his mouth, and he bends his head forward to lick at the bruise on her neck, nips gently until he sinks his teeth at the same time he scissors his fingers, toys with the possibility of a third. She moans his name, pressing her hips against his fingers. Her nails are grazing again, and he asks which she likes better.

 

She takes a deep breath, her head falling back against the door. He watches her chest rise and fall, the striped sweater shirt expanding around her breasts. She is wearing a push-up bra, but he doesn’t think he will have time to see it. There is a hazy unfocused quality to her gaze, and he loves he can make her feel like this. He is unbearably hard and their positioning doesn’t afford him much gratification, but the slick and the clenching around his fingers is definitely stroking him in more satisfied metaphysical places.

 

“Come on, Betty, which do you like better?” He prompts again, nudging his thigh to the side to spread her legs wider.

 

“What?” Her head tips to the side, and his teeth and lips are on her neck again. “What was the question?”

 

Her hand braces the back of his neck, holding him there. “When you control me?” He asks, pushing back against her hold, and her bitten off whimper at his retreat makes his heart glow, her desiring him like a wanton sigh against fire. _We only live, only suspire, consumed by either fire or fire_ , he quotes in his head, gathering her closer, almost gentle now.

 

“Or when I control you?” He couples the second half of the question with the addition of a third finger, and she moans, mutters something that sounds like _too much_. “Come on, answer me, Betts.”

 

“I don’t know,” she mumbles, confused, like she can’t think straight, and it is making him crazy, greedy, too self-satisfied for his own good, a disconnect between the affection in his eyes and the insistence in his hands.

 

“No preference?” He wonders, teasing.

 

“I don’t think I could do without either one, Jug,” she divulges, her hips moving with a mind of their own. “Please.”

 

He smiles. Neither could he.

 

A knock against the glass startles them both, and Jug instinctively slaps his hand over her mouth. He realizes it was the one he had second knuckle deep in her pussy, a sticky smear along Betty’s cheek. She looks like she wants to laugh at the alarmed look on his face, the difficult swallow to get his heart back into his chest, like he has been caught committing a crime. 

 

“Betty, are you in?” Ethel calls through the door. Jug’s eyes land on the door handle, the lock not locked. _Shit_. Can she see their shadows against the marbled glass?

 

Before he can think of a way to stop Ethel from trying the door, he feels Betty’s palm smoothing along the front of his jeans, a shock and a reprieve that has him jerking against her hand. Always the true exhibitionist, he reminds himself wryly, squeezing his eyes shut as she massages him through the denim. 

 

“Betty?” Ethel tries again, and with Betty working him over, Jughead’s thoughts or lack thereof are too preoccupied to come up with a plan. His forehead slips to her shoulder, feeling the warm playful swipe of her tongue against his palm. He vaguely registers she manages to undo a button, hears the muted drag of his zipper.

 

Ethel gets a hold of a door handle at the same moment Betty gets a handle on him. Jughead’s lust-scrambled brain comes up with dead air, and the best he can hope it that with their combined weight against the door, Ethel will think it is locked. If he locks the door now, _Dear Ethel_ will know something is up. Up. God he’s too hard to think straight. Betty’s fingers curl around his cock, thumb smearing over the tip, and the door handle jiggles.

 

“Ethel,” someone calls from down the hallway. The tardy bell rings. “Ethel, hey, I’ve been looking for you.” Veronica. 

 

The powers that be must be thinking of him too fondly if Veronica ends up being his saving grace because he thought it would be a good idea to shove Betty up against the door to the _Blue and Gold_ and fuck her before English class. Just for the hell of it. Just because he wanted to. Just because he thought she might like it, and she does if her hand stroking him is any kind of unsaid encouragement. Good luck does not come readily to him, and sometimes he wonders if the only luck he has in life exists in Betty. 

 

Veronica guides Ethel away from the _Blue and Gold_ , and Jug listens to their voices receding down the hallway, Veronica chattering about some new ideas for Ethel’s newspaper column, complimenting her bow in passing, and then silence as they disappear around the corner.

 

Betty peels his hand from her mouth, and her cheeks and lips are a little flushed from the pressure of his palm. “You’re not finished, Jug,” she prompts.

 

He remembers himself, snatching her misbehaving hand from the front of his jeans and twisting it up behind her. Her back arches, stomach pressing into his with the action. “You want me to fuck you against the door or the desk?”

 

“We’re already here,” she reasons. “The desk is too far away.”

 

He glances over his shoulder. “Miles,” he murmurs.

 

It’s a rush next, his motions hasty that makes her giggle. He smothers them with his tongue in her mouth, a threatening little tug of her twisted arm higher than has her gasp in his mouth. His fingers pinching her panties aside, and this would be so much less awkward if he could just – she helps, guiding, finally lining up the right way and sinking home. She sighs against his lips, a heady breath that meets his own.

 

“Behave?” He loosens his grip on her arm, and she nods, hooking her leg around his hips. He catches it with his free hand. “Good girl.” She pecks him on the mouth, and he releases her arm. He grasps the underside of her other thigh to hitch her closer, a quick thrust that has them both moaning.

 

“Good girl,” he repeats when she slings her arms along his shoulders for support. 

 

His hands grip the backs of her thighs, and he presses her up against the door. As her last foot leaves the ground, he encourages her to wrap it around his hips. “Can you come like this?” He wonders as she pushes his beanie off his head to card her fingers through his hair, her nails striding along his neck. He growls low in the back of his throat, something primal, something he cannot control. She is lighter than he thought or perhaps it is the adrenaline. 

 

“We haven’t tried yet.” But he reads that she is willing to try.

 

She has come before without outside help, without some assistance from his hands or hers, but those have been rare occurrences. In this position, it would be difficult to work his or her hand between them without falling. He’s easy, he thinks, but so much pragmatism and logistics go into getting her off. It wouldn’t be worth it to him if she didn’t.

 

“We can move to the desk,” he offers. 

 

She shakes her head. “No, I like this.”

 

“But, if you can’t,” he starts and she kisses him.

 

“Just shut up and fuck me, Jug,” she demands after.  

 

He starts a steady rhythm, partially for himself, partially to see where she is at. Her eyes closed, brow furrowed, she looks like she is concentrating on a particularly challenging geometry problem, working out the proper angles in her head. He feels her hips shift a little, tilting forward, searching for something. A few more adjustments and then bingo, a spark, a revelation, and she tells him quickly, insistently, _right there, Juggie._ He feels it himself, picks up the pace. 

 

He never imagined it would be this easy. She didn’t come the first time they had sex. She came before and after but never during, at least for a little while. It took a few tries for them to work it out, get the timing down, with a couple mishaps on his end. But, he thought it would take longer, and he wonders if it is always like that for others, if it is just as easy for people like Archie and Veronica or any of the other couples he observes, ponders over, because he feels attuned to Betty Cooper, every motion and nerve ending in concert with her own.

 

To be fair, he never imagined Betty would be the type of girl to ask for what she wants or needs. He thought she might be shy, nervous, apprehensive sexually, and he would have to feel he out. But, he should have known better. _Venus in Furs_ was never the timid type. Not under the glass and not when she came out. 

 

She is getting close, her fingers twisting in his hair, and he knows it for certain when she begs urgently like she worries she will forget, “Don’t come in me, Jug.”

 

“No?”

 

“It’ll – it’s messy,” she explains, her teeth clicking when he thrusts against her a little too roughly.

 

He pins her tight against the glass. “But,” he starts, studying her parted mouth, feeling her humid breaths against his own. “I like the idea of the mess I made inside you – I like imagining it.” He punctuates this with a sharper pitch of his hips, her shoulders thudding against the glass. She groans, gets so tight he falters for a moment, disoriented. “Dripping down your thigh,” he grinds out. “In the middle of our lecture on _Watership Down.”_ Conjuring up the debates about men and the natural world and watching Betty squirm in her seat, squeezing her thighs together as their indiscretions seep through her panties. “Tell me you like it, too.”

 

She whines, clutching him closer. “Juggie.”

 

He capitulates, caves like a sap. “So, where should I come then, Betts?” But, not without compromise.

 

“My – my mouth,” she stutters. 

 

“Yeah?” He kisses her messy, a filthy smash of lips that scrambles her thoughts, inadvertently his own. “If you promise to swallow,” he bargains.

 

She nods vigorously, her fingers twisting more insistently at the nape of his neck and her cunt tightening. He shifts her weight against his hips to reach up and tug on her ponytail none too gently. “Promise me.” 

 

“I promise,” she swears, rocking against him when his hips stop moving.

 

He feels mean, greedy. “You promise what?”

 

“I promise,” she begins, looks lost for a moment as her head falls back against the glass. She grips his shoulders, scared she will lose it completely. “I promise to swallow your cum,” she answers quickly.

 

“Good girl,” he praises, and she shivers, clutches him closer. He replaces his hand under her thigh, shoves her back against the door, and resumes the pace.

 

“Oh, god, Juggie,” she murmurs in his ear, rocking against him, and he has to focus on anything but coming.

 

“Christ,” he bites out, but she isn’t listening. She’s gone. He pulls back to watch the pleasure melt across her features as the first wave of her climax descends, the bewildered bliss in the stunned part of her lips that sharpens into a grimace and a whine as her body jolts again him. It takes everything in him not to come at that moment. He lets her come, moving against her slowly with shallow thrusts, drawing the rest from her.

 

As he is about to kiss her, she shoves him back from too much, overwhelmed. He awkwardly lets her down, his dick slipping free. He takes himself in hand, ready to finish it himself, but then she is on her knees, and he shoves his cock in her mouth, winding her ponytail up in his hand and coming violently. He slaps his other hand against the glass for balance, his thumb stroking absently along the painted _Blue and Gold_ letters as his hips jerk involuntarily. He stares at the bulge of her cheek with unsteady fascination, the streaking of mascara at the corners of her wet eyes. The feel of her fingers skimming above his hipbone sends phantom shivers up his melting spine as he empties himself in her mouth with a defeated groan. Her nails marks must be all over his body by now.

 

When he’s done, he guides her away, pulling gently on her ponytail. His dick slips from her mouth with a wet pop. Before she can swallow, he plants two curious fingers to her bottom lip, peels her mouth open to see what he’s left behind, the milky slick pooling on her pink tongue. He notices her hand hidden under her skirt soothing tender flesh. He kept his promise. 

 

“Good girl,” he approves, and she preens under the praise. “Now, do what you promised.”

 

She gulps audibly and smiles afterwards like she is proud, showing him her empty mouth, clean tongue. He smirks lazy, spent, like he is too, so proud. “I don’t deserve you, Betty Cooper.”

 

* * *

 

**March 2017**

**Jughead**

**Ballad of the Thin Man by Bob Dylan**

Trudging up the trailer steps, he just wants a few hours of uninterrupted sleep and maybe a couple more to ruminate, finish a bit of follow-up research, but his phone buzzes in his pocket. Unpopped popcorn kernels clatter to the metal platform as he pulls out his new phone. He checks the greasy screen, sees his little sister’s name flash atop an outdated photo, and automatically presses ignore.

 

He watches the screen die, sees his guilty disproportionate face in the glossy black reflection. Screening her calls for the last two weeks, he still doesn’t know what to say. He worries she might not be okay, but based on the few voicemails she has left, she is just worried about him. He is worried, too, about himself, he thinks, pushing into the entryway, flipping on the kitchen light. He tosses his keys on the kitchen table, on top of the folders and scattered photographs, coffee-stained notes and one of Betty’s purple pens, the one with the chewed cap.

 

Something nags in the back of his head that she only started to worry about him six months after their father was arraigned, ten months after she was packed away to Toledo. What changed in the past year? What does she want? What does he have to offer, he thinks, assessing the state of his makeshift murder board above the kitchen table.

 

Habit has him scratching at his chin and his fingers trip over the Band-Aid, three days old now, holding strong. He should check the scrape underneath, but he doesn’t want to replace it. Not yet.

 

The trailer is so quiet that he almost wishes he could hear his father sitting on the ratty velvet sofa in the front room, the tinny sound of the announcer for the Mets-Nats game on the tube. Even the clink of the sixth bottle in the pack would be a comfort to him now.

 

J.B. leaves a voicemail. He listens to the newest one. _I miss you, big brother_ , is all she says, sounding faraway, swallowed up by staticky distance, small and unreachable like so many things in his life.

 

He looks back at the murder board in his childhood kitchen. Left to his own devices, this is what he becomes. His father always knew. There is a leftover bottle of Wild Turkey under the sink, his father’s emergency cache, and Jughead wonders when it will make its first and final appearance in his hand.

 

Sinking further into the nowhere spaces in his head, he thinks that his whole life was derailed not by his father going to prison or even his mother abandoning him with his estranged sister in tow, but by losing her. Sure, these prior events precipitated the fall, but he was still writing when his mother left. He was still writing when his father was sentenced. He doesn’t write anymore, and he has not typed a single page let alone penned a word since he lost her.

 

And without his writing, without her, he doesn’t know who he is anymore. He believed he was finding it bit by bit in those months leading to their breakup. He felt so close just moments before, this heady sense of completion in that last press of their lips, the certainty that she felt the same, and now he is something else entirely, something he hoped to never become, something he hoped he would be lucky enough to avoid.

 

He starts to see the trailer through his mother’s eyes, the chipped linoleum, the sink that clogged if you looked at it wrong, the squeaking ceiling fan, everything off-kilter and broken in some way, some unfixable way unless one could start from scratch. And maybe she realized that, that nothing would be right again unless she started with a clean slate, unless she scrapped the unfixable mess she found herself in and pressed restart. Toledo was her reboot, and Jellybean was salvageable. He was not. In that, his parents could agree, if not on anything else.

 

Those weeks following Gladys’s departure spring to mind, his father disappearing for days, his calls to his grandmother in Toledo going unanswered, and he thinks about that morning. His mother had to pass the corner market on her way out of the trailer park, and him an after-thought picking over an unbroken dozen of eggs in the cold case while the store clerk mad-dogged him in the security mirror. His mother’s Tercel must have buzzed by, Jellybean in the backseat stuffed between two overfilled suitcases and trash bags filled with clothes, him wondering if he would have enough left over to buy JB a Milky Way.

 

The Milky Way ended up a melted mess in a brown wrapper on the kitchen counter where he left it for the following three days hoping that any moment his mother and his little sister would walk through the door. Hoping he would get the chance to give it to JB, show his mother that he was worth remembering, that he was a good egg. But, it melted. And his mother didn’t come back. And Jughead ate the Milky Way like a go-gurt, squeezing the liquid chocolate and soft nougat into his mouth on his way to the woods to throw knives with Dilton Doiley thinking _fuck being the good egg_.

 

He looks up at his repurposed kitchen wall and wonders if this is his version of the Milky Way for Betty. Because he cannot be with her. He loves her too much. And he feels pretty certain it was the right choice. With his bike out of commission and the skin missing on his shoulders, he is never more sure now.   

 

But, he can give her this. He can give her back her sense of security. If that is all he is good for. 

 

Yet, the Milky Way melts. He fails to turn up any new leads. The more he searches, the less he finds, and he finds the wrong end of things. Getting run off the road is proof enough of that.

 

For an instant, he thought he was close. Tom Keller seemed good for it. Even Betty thought so.

 

The sheriff was on patrol that night. He could have attacked Jughead. Keller shot Svenson, maybe to keep him quiet.

 

More curious, someone murdered Dr. Masters in Riverdale General, slit his throat. The police never directly attributed the death to the Black Hood, and there was no blood evidence besides the doctor’s. To Jughead’s knowledge, the killer is still at large, but it’s been three months and the case is cooling. Jug suspects the real Black Hood might have gone to the hospital after he knifed him by the treehouse, and after Dr. Masters patched him up, the Hood offed the good doctor. Crime scene spick-span, maybe the murderer was learning a thing or two. He had never been so careful not to leave a mark before.

 

In his research, he discovered Keller went to elementary school with Joseph Conway, renamed Svenson, before his family was murdered. From Archie, he knows someone convinced Conway to lie about who killed his family. It could have been Keller, but Jug sees his own father and even Fred Andrews on Conway’s fifth grade class list. Hal Cooper is in the same photograph.

 

But, Jug never finds concrete proof. He only finds what he isn’t looking for. Keller in the throes of an affair with the Madam Mayor of Riverdale is one snippet he hoped to never uncover, but it allows him to see quite clearly through the seedy motel window that Keller had not been stabbed in the last few months.  

 

Given the Hood’s unusual interest in Betty, the letter, the fact the Hood wanted both Jughead and Archie dead, he suspects Hal Cooper at one point, but every inquest leads to a dead end. Hal Cooper is a marshmallow. He eats maple shaved-ice at the town fair and watches reruns of Cheers in his rented apartment by the _Register_. If Hal was spending time cultivating some hidden serial killer persona, Jughead is sure he would have found out by now. Better yet, Betty would have, too. 

 

Jug starts to wonder what exactly he is hoping for, the end goal of all this footwork. He feels it, the underlying desperation in this fool’s errand. He can say all he wants is to give Betty something of value, something she needs, without expecting anything in return. He can convince himself it isn’t because he wants to be with her, that finding the real Black Hood would reopen that lovely Pandora’s box. They opened it the first time and all the big bad uglies poured out. If they opened it again, would there be nothing left but hope?

 

In this search, he digs up nothing worth the trouble, only things that drag him further into the mess he started all those months ago. He knows who ran him off the road on the way back from Shankshaw. The Ghoulies picked him for a reason. 

 

At the time, he was looking into a death that might fit the Black Hood’s modus operandi, a teenage junkie dealer found decapitated by the train tracks outside of Greendale. Based on ligature marks, the police suspected he had been bound to the tracks. Yet, in his pursuit to determine whether the Black Hood was involved, Jughead instead finds a Serpent dealing harder drugs and feeding information to the Ghoulies, the rival gang of his father’s Serpents. 

 

It certainly was not his intention to sniff out a Serpent snitch, and he almost considered keeping that inconvenient fact to himself. But his father berating him –  _favors, favors, favors_ , each one a jab of his thumb against Jughead’s forehead, reminding him of when he was a little kid and his father yelling at him to get something or other through his dumb, thick skull, _boy_.

 

So, he took the news to Tall Boy, another chip to cash later. But, the next thing Jug knew, he was standing in the basement of the Wyrm again with said snitch and half a dozen of his father’s inner circle and watching Tall Boy put the knife in his son’s hand.

 

Jughead watched a bubble of snot grow and pop, grow and pop, from the snitch’s chapped nostril. Quelling the nostalgic nausea swelling in the base of his throat, Jughead studied the brief twinge of regret that twisted Arthur’s mouth when Tall Boy directed the boy, younger than Jughead, to prove himself worthy of wearing that fucking jacket. Jug swallowed his own guilt when he realized exactly what Tall Boy was ordering Fun Size – Arthur to do.

 

With Sweet Pea’s knee fixed to the snitch’s back, he watched his video-game partner peel the man’s shirt up. Like an out-of-body experience, Jughead saw himself on the banks of the Sweetwater in the headlights of Penny’s Pontiac, watching himself place the knife against the snitch’s skin, the gooseflesh welling up around the blade. Jug could see the look on his face, the smug vindication, the reflection of it on Sweet Pea’s face and then overlaid with the abject misery on Arthur’s.

 

“This is what we do to traitors, boy,” Tall Boy reasoned with his son, glancing back at Jughead, who for a moment worried he might relive that night with Penny by the Sweetwater frame-for-frame and heave on the basement floor of the Wyrm. “It sends the right message, doesn’t it, Jug?”

 

Jughead’s hands and face went numb as Arthur’s resolve hardened. The kid was quick about it. Better to be quick. Better to get it over with. There is nothing worse in this world than being indecisive, Jughead surmises. With indecision, it only hurts more.

 

Jughead thought offhand that with enough purpose, enough willpower, one could make anything feel right, thought this up until the point he heard the snitch howling as Fun Size literally stripped him of his only connection to these people, and Jughead wondered how there could be so much meaning in one little symbol, in one small brand, that with it came family, community, and a sense of self-actualization, a sense of surety that came with these things.

 

But also the responsibility, Jughead reminded himself, as Fun Size finished flaying the tattoo from the snitch’s arm and presented it to his father.

 

With some shame, Jug also knew he did not consider the weight of these things when he took Penny’s brand. He knew it was important, however it did not register because what was this symbol to him but another metaphorical blade over his head. In his own twisted way, he considered it a gift, absolving Penny of her ties to the Serpents, granting her a clean slate. It was easier to think this way. Easier than thinking he had beaten and mutilated a woman to appease his father.

 

Tall Boy gripped the back of his son’s neck, knocked their foreheads together in some kind of paternal solidarity, and Arthur – Fun Size. Suddenly Jughead did not see Arthur anywhere. In a blink, there was no Arthur, no gap-toothed short-slice that ran around with him at trailer park barbeques. Blood on his hands, his switchblade, his father’s broad palm proud on his head, Jughead watched Arthur get swallowed up by that jacket in a blink.

 

His father in his head. _Are we men now?_

 

Jughead did not feel fundamentally changed after what he did to Penny. Perhaps because he proved a long time ago that he was capable of doing what he did. His change had already happened, before Penny, before the summer his mother left and before the fosters and the messed up birthdays and the descent of his family into years of vice and resentment. Perhaps he had always been changed. Or perhaps there was nothing to change.

 

Deeper and deeper. That is where he finds himself. All his good intentions wasted. His Milky Way a liquefied mess. As if the moment his feet find purchase on solid ground, something else gives. Hope was never at the bottom of that box. His luck is Schrodinger’s cat. 

 

There’s a rap on the front door. “I can see your kitchen light, Jones. Open the door.” His miserable mixed metaphors scatter like the roaches that live in the hidden recesses of his dilapidated childhood home. 

 

He cracks the door open to find Toni Topaz, five-foot and small change wearing something that could be her shirt but was probably advertised as a bra over her leather jacket. “Topaz.” They haven’t exchanged so much as a courtesy nod since Penny. “Hi.” 

 

“Cut the monosyllabic pleasantries, Jones, and let me in.”

 

He glances for company and then moves out the way to let her inside. She zones immediately on the murder board sprawling across his kitchen walls, bleeding onto the dining table with sticky notes edging around the windowsill. “How long have you been secretly Goldbluming in here, Jones.”

 

It sounds rhetorical or he hopes it is because he settles on, “You want coffee?” He was going to take a nap before he put the pot on, but now he won’t have time for the siesta.

 

She mumbles something that sounds like a yes as her gaze passes over the spider’s web of mugshots and newspaper clippings and filched coroner’s reports. “I thought they already caught this guy.”

 

He pops the grounds trap from the Mr. Coffee and sees the last filter sitting moldy in the trap, decides to run a quick hot water flush. “It’s for a book,” he lies.

 

“Another true crime novel? Did you finish the last one?”

 

He checks the sink for relatively clean mugs, rinsing a couple his mother left behind from her profanity collection. “I’m still working on the ending.” He goes to toss the moldy filter into the trash, but there is no bag in the can. “What can I do for you, Topaz?”

 

“I heard about your accident.” Fucking Sweet Pea. “Tall Boy is calling a meeting.” He dumps the pot of hot water and starts a brew with fresh grounds, feeling Toni’s eyes on the back of his head. “There’s a good chance he’ll convince the rest of the Serpents to start a war.”

 

“Is that what they want?” He wonders while watching the coffee percolate, comforted by the steam and sputter, the smell of fresh coffee to cover up the mildew smell of the last batch.

 

“It doesn’t matter. It’s mutually guaranteed annihilation.” Ah, the nuclear option, a crowd favorite of gangs like the Ghoulies.

 

“And you’re coming to me because?”

 

“You could talk to him, or you could talk to your dad, ask him to throw his weight a little. A turf war is the last thing we all need, and Tall Boy is stupid and bull-headed enough to just rush us all into something we probably can’t win.” She notices his father’s leather jacket is still where he left it hanging on the back of the door. “You’re not a Serpent, Jughead, but you have some pull. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

 

He pours her a cup of coffee and muses she never even asked him if he was alright from the accident. After handing her the mug, he then clears a space on the dining table, stuffing notes into a manila folder with a peeling label that reads _2002 Taxes._ Toni blows on the steam above a quiet request in a nest of flowers to _fuck off, coffee first._

“Think of it like another favor, Jug,” she tries.

 

“Tall Boy might not like me going behind his back,” he contends, drumming the side of his own mug, his fingers tracing the chipped lettering, _zero fucks given until coffee_.

 

“Just tell your dad about the accident, that it was the Ghoulies. You don’t have to mention Tall Boy or the meeting.”

 

Jughead sips slowly, carefully, scalds himself anyway. He looks off into the front room, sees the Underwood on the coffee table. Betty forced it on him after winter break, arguing that the return date had passed and shipping would cost too much and it was always meant for him anyway, she wouldn’t get much use out of it or much at a pawn shop. _Little liar,_ he thought when he got home and took it out of the box to find it had been recently serviced, definitely well-cared for in its lifetime. He couldn’t imagine how much it was worth.

 

He hasn’t even used it yet, but there is a blank piece of paper flopped over the platen. Intentions and actions can be very different and incongruent things, he thinks. It’s the follow through that matters.

 

“Guess I don’t have much of a choice do I?” He realizes aloud. Given he is a target now. Next time he might not get out of it with a few bumps and scrapes. “I’ll talk to my dad.”

 

Toni looks pleased with his answer, relaxes and drinks her coffee without mentioning it again. She glances at his uniform shirt. “Isn’t the Twilight opening back up soon?”

 

He pulls his shirt front out to look at the Bijoux logo on the chest pocket. “Yeah, thank god.” No more slinging overpriced Milk Duds or scraping gum off the bottoms of theatre chairs. Come spring break, Jughead will have full reign of the projection booth once more, surrounded by the film of the greats, and an air conditioned place to hide when the tin can of a trailer gets to be too much. He is already planning the lineup for opening night.

 

* * *

 

 

**March 2017**

**Betty**

**Orbit by Alice Phoebe Lou**

If she could make every excuse to put herself in his line of sight, if it worked, she would, but he would take every opportunity to avoid the temptation. Even when she knows it is pointless, she still wanders in his way, like a meteor that must pass within his orbit, but she does not orbit. She falls and falls and vaporizes before she makes contact. She would rather collide even if it would destroy them both.

 

And though they reached a compromise at the start of the second semester, reasoning they should at least feign civility for Archie’s sake, she still feels like she drew the short straw. She thought a feint at civility would mean a return to some semblance of friendship, but he looks right through her, and she wants to ask why it is so easy for him. She cannot compartmentalize herself as well, and while he seems unfazed by their proximity during their tutoring sessions, those rare lunch periods he shows up to their table, when he deigns to pass her a cutting quip about their new English teacher’s propensity for conversational alliteration – she feels caught between two choices, two desires. She wishes she could cast some spell to bind him to her own orbit until he went up in flames himself. Or she wishes she could feel nothing. Feeling nothing would be bearable, passable.

 

He doesn’t appear to feel any pain. He doesn’t seem to feel anything. He still makes stupid jokes, mean jokes, teasing Veronica bout her leftover Park-Avenue Princess pettiness regarding the upcoming student elections, scoffing at the none-too-subtle inquests into his orientation when Kevin takes the chance to ask him to be the videographer for the spring production of the musical _Carrie_. He goes through the motions of sociability, scrapes the bare minimum so no one is the wiser, most of all Archie and, by proxy, Fred Andrews.

 

But after months of the same wash and repeat, she is not so certain it is an act anymore. And when she starts to think maybe he was right, that the two of them together created more problems than it solved, that their relationship was a karmic black hole, she starts to feel crazy, that she never really knew him at all. Holding onto the possibility that their circumstances might change, that some time and distance from the misfortunes of last semester, all their bad decisions and the consequences that continue to trouble her, that don’t seem to haunt him, that maybe, eventually, they could just fall back together like the first time. Like something inevitable without expectations or planning, but then she feels foolish with want when he looks right through her. Maybe it was cruel to want him to burn with her. Maybe if she really loved him, she would leave him alone. She would be his friend and want nothing more than that privilege because it was that, a privilege in her eyes to be his friend. 

 

_Escape_ , her brother tells her. _Be someone else, if only for a little while._

 

She wants nothing more. It is a satisfying feeling, a reprieve from herself, and she likes the distance of the webcam, the separation, and the control it offers. It lets her playact herself, be different girls, take control or let others lead, but it is her choice. And it makes her feel powerful.

 

This is how she keeps her shit together, how she deals. With her sister’s radio silence from the Farm. With her father’s outright refusal to live in the same house as his illegitimate son. With her mother’s blind preoccupation with said illegitimate son. With Jughead’s emotional distance.

 

This is how she works on her own emotional distance, her own compartmentalization. This is how she makes being livable.

 

That night when her brother Chic showed her the more degenerate parts of himself, his special spots their mother knew nothing about, she felt absolved for her own deviancies. He cracked open the laptop and scrolled to his bookmarks folder, toggling through the list of websites he modeled for. Most were geared towards a specific clientele, many he figured were not suitable for a girl like Betty, but he assured her there were equivalents, sites more appropriate for her.

 

‘When people look at us, they want,’ he explained to her. ‘They see a doll, something perfect, a thing they want.’ He is, she thought, a perfect looking specimen, strangely beautiful in a frigid off-putting way, the same kind of placid beauty that Jason Blossom cultivated so well but less soft. ‘We can use that, Betty.’  

 

The control, though, is addictive. She likes the using part, and she loves to disappear for a little while into the depraved fantasies of others, into her own, but always the ones where she is the centerpiece, the most wanted, the first choice.

 

Jughead thinks she is untouchable. And now she is. She makes herself so. Unreachable, comforted by the clear divisions between herself and the client, the safety from behind the computer screen. No one can hurt her here. And they only want – want her, to adore her, to please her. 

 

She runs through the list of messages in her inbox, date inquiries, letters of praise and hopeful pining. It is this, too, the fact she can choose, choose whom, choose when, and choose how.

 

She likes listening to them outline their fantasies, even the most obscene, the filthiest, and she relishes the chance to admonish them when they get out of hand, that she has the power to easily take it all away, that she can dish out only as much as she wants. She has the power.

 

She closes her inbox, breaks a few empty promises, a couple _maybe laters_. All she really wants is a milkshake from Pop’s and maybe later tonight a quick date over the cam. She wants to try out some new outfits.

 

There are a few that just want to watch her try on clothes, different underwear sets. They like watching her shyly turn away, affording only a glimpse of her breast, her bare bottom from behind, the suggestive shadow between her legs in the dim of her bedroom. This is all they ask for. They like the safety, too, in only requesting so much, the feigned intimacy of a peek.

 

It’s nice outside today. Spring is around the corner. She has a new dress. A pleasant walk to Pop’s sounds nice.

 

As Betty steps onto the landing, in the kitchen, her mother slams the phone down, curses her father’s name.

 

“Mom?” She asks, poking her head around the corner. Her mother stands over the counter, gripping the receiver like she might throw it across the room, much like the brick she launched through the _Register_ window only last November. As Betty rounds the corner, her mother releases the phone and looks up.

 

“Oh, honey, you look nice,” her mother says admiringly.

 

Inherent politeness kicks in when Betty bows her head in thanks, swishing her lavender skirt about her thighs. She expected her mother to scold her about the length, but her mother only adjusts the strap to settle more securely over her shoulder. Her mother doesn’t even notice Betty isn’t wearing a bra.

 

“Was that dad?”

 

“Hm? Oh, yes, your father has been a nosy little busy-body.” _Match made in hell_ , Betty thinks tongue-in-cheek. Her mother never appreciated getting a dose of her own medicine. “I’m sure you’ll find out in due time, since Hal can’t seem to keep his mouth shut about anything for long. He would relish the chance to tear me down, so I want you to hear it from me first.” Alice licks her forefinger and smooths a few fly-aways from Betty’s face. “Chic is not your father’s son.”

 

Betty blinks. “Oh.”

 

“But, he’s still your brother.”

 

It doesn’t really hit her, the gravity of her mother’s admission. Maybe it is working, the compartmentalization.

 

She doesn’t feel much at all when her mother tells her that she and Jughead share a sibling. Alice seems to be waiting for a reaction, but Betty only nods with faux-thoughtfulness. Chic is her half-brother. Chic is Jug’s half-brother. Betty tries not to laugh at imagining the kind of Thanksgiving where she and Jughead would still be together, Chic carving the turkey, her kissing Jug’s cheek when their brother asks them to help serve, Jughead quickstepping with a _sure thing, brother_. Regular Brady Bunch and just as weirdly incestuous. Never in a million years.

 

Betty decides on a simple, “Okay, mom.”

 

Somehow the fact she and Jughead share a sibling is the least strange thing that has happened to her in the past year. Her mother expects it to be, but Betty wants to assure her that no, being stalked by a serial killer takes the cake. And maybe Chic encouraging Betty’s penchant for darker delights and descent into the seedy world of underage webcamming is still probably stranger than all that. And maybe this sibling overlap is really just par for the course now. Betty is learning to lean into the punches, beginning to think the stranger the better.  

 

“I’m going to Pop’s,” she tells her mother, giving her a quick peck on the cheek, leaving her mother flummoxed in the middle of the Cooper kitchen.

 

“Sweetheart, at least put on a cardigan. There’s still a chill,” her mother calls from the kitchen, but Betty pretends she didn’t hear her and slams the front door closed behind her, skipping down the porch steps and down the drive.

 

Yet, she doesn’t go to Pop’s. She finds herself on the Andrews lawn, her white canvas shoes wet as she meanders towards the open garage. Something clanks to the concrete followed by a hissed swear, a frustrated thud, an engine that won’t turn over.

 

“You’ll flood it,” she tells him, leaning against the side of the garage door, twisting on her heels with her hands holding the sill behind her for balance. “And then you’ll never figure out what’s wrong.”

 

“I know what’s wrong with it,” he snaps, twisting the key in the ignition again. “I fucking crashed it.”

 

“Want some help?” She inquires, looking down at his hat next to the toolbox on the ground, scattered with a bunch of wrenches and whatnots. It is the first time she has seen him without it in months. She misses running her hands through his hair.

 

“No, thank you,” he says gruffly. He won’t look at her. He drops to his knees to inspect the engine with a flashlight, looks thoroughly confused.

 

“Do you even know what you’re doing down there?”

 

He sighs, frustrated, and she knows he is forcing himself not to look at her. “I’m pretty sure you weren’t hired to tutor me in mechanics, Betty.”

 

“I wasn’t hired at all,” she reminds him. “I volunteered.” She wants him to look at her. He needs to see her dress. He needs to see what he is missing. She wants him to hurt with want. She hurts all the time with it.

 

“You were voluntold,” he bites back.

 

“I’m volunteering now.”

 

“And I’m telling you I don’t need your help,” he argues, finally looking back at her perched by the garage door. His eyes idle long enough to know she has won her private little game.  

 

When she initiates her approach, he stands up abruptly, angling the flashlight downwards before he blinds her. “Jughead,” she starts, crowding him, and he grips the flashlight tighter. “Back up,” she orders softly, her hand slipping over his to gently pry the flashlight away.

 

“Let me help,” she appeals, letting her touch linger a moment, and he looks stranded. She doesn’t think he is breathing, and the closer she gets, the more certain she is that he cannot breathe, that she has taken that away, too, with the flashlight. She wonders if, from this angle, he can tell she isn’t wearing a bra. The way he keeps his eyes above her chin tells her that, yes, he can definitely tell.

 

She almost reaches up to card her fingers through his hair, just one quick stroke to revive her memory of what that feels like, but instead, she liberates the flashlight from his hands and gets down on her knees to inspect the motorcycle.

 

“Betty,” he calls. “Wait, you’ll get your dress dirty.”

 

From her knees, she looks up at him through her eyelashes, the way she knows they all like, they all enjoy, that makes them feels like they are in control, like she belongs to them. “I’m not afraid of getting a little dirty, Juggie.”

 

She muses that she is at just the right height for something filthier than an engine check, and she sees that same thought flicker through his own mind when something darkens in his eyes and he flexes his fingers at his sides. Her gaze lands on his belt, nothing complicated about it, simple buckle and tongue, and he takes a step back, retreating.

 

“Fine,” he decides, plopping on the plaid couch that is probably littered in dog hair. If they tumbled on that couch, she wonders how long it would take to get all the dog hair off her new dress. She wonders if her dress would be worth salvaging afterwards because Jughead sits on his hands like he is afraid he might tear it off her. He looks at her like he wants to tear her apart for a whole host of reasons and victory thrills in the pit of her belly. 

 

“Thank you,” he mutters miserably, sinking into the worn cushions in a sulk.

 

She smiles a perfect cutting Cooper smile. “My pleasure, Juggie.” _Keep trying to ignore me, Jug_. 

 

* * *

 

 

**March 2018**

**Jughead**

**Social Cues by Cage the Elephant**

 

“Are we really doing this?” He complains.

 

“Senior profiles are tradition, Jug,” she points out, unlatching her ordered lunch tins.

 

“It’s so cliché, though,” he argues as she rolls her eyes. He thinks it is really just a circle jerk for the plebes that bullied him the past three years. At least Reggie, Cheryl, and – thank god – Chuck Clayton are finally graduating. Small fucking favors. Maybe senior year will be mildly pleasant, passable without incident. “The _Blue and Gold_ deserves better than those routine fluff pieces.”

 

“Juggie,” Betty admonishes gently. “People like puff pieces. The faculty likes puff pieces. Principal Weatherbee likes puff pieces. Not everyone can stomach a continuous doom and gloom like you can.” She cradles his cheek in her palm, implores with those big Little Mermaid sea-glass eyes that always manage to leave him helpless. “But you are going to pull your weight on these profiles, too. Be a team player, please. For me, Juggie. Then, you can go back to your hard-hitting article on the true identity of the cafeteria meat.” She smacks him gently on the cheek and then returns to laying out their lunch. 

 

“What about the cafeteria meat?” Archie inquires as he sets his tray down, eyeing his own sloppy-joe and mystery greens.

 

“It’s not as devastating as you might think,” Betty assures Archie. “Nothing Double-Meat palace or anything. Or well, yeah, pretty close to home.”

 

“It’s vegetables,” Jughead supplies flatly. “And it’s a travesty to us meat-eaters. I feel cheated.”

 

Veronica takes her seat next to Archie, watches her boyfriend shrug and take a large bite of his vegetarian sloppy-joe. “Meat or no meat, that is not food,” she contends, setting her paper coffee cup on the table top.

 

Betty slides over the turkey sandwich she made Jughead, extra turkey. He refuses to eat the cafeteria food on principle, not until they label it for what it is, imposter meat. When he threatened a hunger strike, Betty placated him with the offer of bringing him lunch until the administration caved. Which didn’t seem likely to happen soon, but Jug was nothing if not a persistent pain-in-the-ass. They would crack. However, on Principal Weatherbee’s last nerve, Betty had to mediate the situation by offering to do a series of senior profiles leading up to graduation. 

 

“You two,” Veronica charges, pointing her finger at the two of them, Betty absently stirring veggies in hummus and Jughead negotiating a too-large bite of turkey sandwich. “I expect a thank you very much.”

 

Jughead swallows painfully but manages to scoff. “For what?”

 

“Really?” Veronica circles her pointer finger at them. “We’re at school, you two. Keep it in your pants in public spaces at least. You’re lucky I grabbed Ethel before she could walk in on whatever you two were up to. Poor girl shouldn’t have to see whatever that was” Archie blushes a red to match his hair and busies himself with the rest of his sloppy joe.

 

“It wasn’t public,” Jug counters easily, unfazed. “It was a room with four walls, a roof, a lock on the door. I could have sworn,” he contends, looking to Betty for corroboration. Veronica glares at him while Betty buries her face in her hands.

 

“Did you use the lock?” Veronica inquires expectantly.

 

Jughead makes a show of thinking deeply on it. He knows he didn’t. Betty looks like she is ready to slap whatever smartass answer he comes up with back into his mouth, so he shrugs, reaches for the open bag of mini pretzels by her hand, slipping his little finger over hers in a half-assed show of contrition. Luckily, Trev Brown waltzes over to their table to change the subject for them.

 

Trev turns to Betty with something that looks like concern or condolences. “Hey, I heard about this morning.”

 

Having not recovered from the previous embarrassment, Betty goes even pinker but Jug feels self-satisfied, hiding his smirk with a handful of mini pretzels. Veronica glares at him. Under the table, his palm smooths along Betty’s thigh, fingers curling inwards, and she shifts her legs closed.

 

Then, Trev clarifies, “They announced the memorial for Midge and the others. I wanted to check if you were okay.”

 

Betty’s thighs clamp on Jug’s hand as she turns a whole new shade of shame, and Jughead tamps down on the urge to slap his palms over her ears. Her hands are flat on the bench at her sides, but he can see the tension in her knuckles. Would it be too obvious if he grabbed her hands now, slipped his thumbs over her palms?

 

“I’m okay,” Betty chirps too brightly. “Thanks for checking in, Trev. You’re very sweet.”

 

Jug’s hand finds the juncture of her shoulder and neck, and she tenses up, shrugging and smudging away the foundation she used to cover up the bruise his mouth left behind. Not exactly how he thought that would go.

 


	9. master of none

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to _heartunsettledsoul_ and _imserpentking_ for enduring my fussiness and getting ahead on this. Thank you to all who are still reading this monster.

**March 2018**

**Betty**

**Dr. Glass Session #29**

“I got a call from your pharmacist asking me about an early prescription.” 

 

Betty swallows, feels her heart drop back down her throat. She didn’t know pharmacists could do that. 

 

“Oh yeah,” Betty confirms. “I think he might have short-changed me a little on the last prescription. I ran out.”

 

For the first time, Dr. Glass has a clipboard in his lap as he reviews what she suspects are her medical records and her prescription history. “You’re still taking the recommended dosage?”

 

“Yes,” she asserts. “Same time, every day, on the dot.” She doesn’t even need an alarm anymore. It is like her body knows when it needs it. Even if that is more than once a day. She trusts her body. 

 

There is a brief pause as he assesses her, waits for maybe an explanation, an admission, a crumbling revealing. “Do you ever skip doses?”

 

“Sometimes,” she admits, like that isn’t a bad thing. 

 

He nods, makes a note on his clipboard. The dynamic between them recalibrates with the appearance of the clipboard, and she doesn’t like it. For the first time, she feels like she is under the glass as he studies each date she chose to fill her prescription, wondering if he has penned calculations based on the prescribed dosages, whether she might be hoarding pills. Like he doesn’t trust her to know what she needs.

 

“Do you ever take more than you should?”

 

“No,” she answers, too soon. “Never.” Too much.

 

“How are you sleeping?”

 

Not much since the announcement of the memorial for her father’s victims. “Fine.” Jughead is starting to notice.

 

Dr. Glass would have heard about the memorial, so she expects the conversation to veer in that direction, but he inquires instead about how school is going, her grades, any trouble concentrating, and she tries not to sound bratty when she assures him everything is _fine_.

 

“Home life is good? Your mother?”

 

“All fine,” she responds, and the _fine_ ends on too high a note. _Calm your shit, Betty_. “I mean, my mother won’t be in town for the memorial.” Crap, she mentioned it first. “She claims there is something more important going on at the Farm, some kind of meditation retreat. I think it’s just an excuse.” She can talk about this, her mother, the Farm, her justified misgivings about their _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ type tactics.  

 

Dr. Glass sets aside the clipboard, the pen, and she finally relaxes even as the conversation takes a turn towards the last thing she wants to talk about. “Are you going to the memorial?” 

 

“Yes, of course,” she answers, like it is obvious.

 

If anyone should be forced to go, it should be her. And she will force herself to go, even if Jughead thinks it is a bad idea.

 

They keep having the same argument over and over again. He keeps telling her that she doesn’t have to put herself through the grinder for these people, that she doesn’t owe anyone anything. And she contends that it isn’t about owing anyone or placing blame, but that she should be there because she is a part of this town, simple as that. She will not concede the fact that someone from the Coopers must be there to take the brunt of the town’s grief, and that while her mother and her sister could hide up north at the Farm in disgrace, Betty would face their fears for them, her own shame and involvement, head on. She was not allowed to be a coward. 

 

“How do you feel about the memorial?”

 

“I think it’s necessary.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I don’t think this town ever took the time to deal with what happened last year. I don’t think we ever grieved properly. It was over so quickly, the arrest, the trial. And I think it’s important to remember the people we lost, that we aren’t allowed to forget. When you forget, it happens again,” she explains carefully, canvassing Dr. Glass’s reaction to her statement, her eyes flickering to the clipboard on the side-table next to him.

 

“Did you grieve?”

 

“I didn’t lose anyone,” she cites. Compared to the rest, she came out relatively unscathed. By the skin of her teeth, sure, but she got off easy. 

 

“Didn’t you?”

 

“Who?” She shifts in her seat. “My father? I don’t consider that a loss. I consider that a blessing. I was lucky.”

 

“You were there when he was arrested. You called the police. You shot him. You saved your mother, yourself. But, you lost your father. Is your family the same?”

 

“My family was falling apart way before my father was ever arrested for killing a bunch of people. I lost him a long time ago,” Betty argues. Before that night, the confession and the arrest, her father hadn’t lived with them for months, but he was not the only one to blame for that.  

 

“And it was final then. You were losing him slowly and then all of a sudden, he was gone for good.”

 

 

It felt like a door slamming closed. Her father lived with them only on and off that year, and she could admit that when he lived with them, even if her parents despised each other, her life felt more stable with him in the house. She thought it couldn’t be so bad if he was living with them, that it was a sign things could get better, that maybe her family could repair itself, albeit slowly. She only thought it would take some time, some patience on her part, on her mother’s, her father’s, even her sister’s. But then she had the gun in her hands and he was confessing and her mother was on the other end of the barrel and the door shut with a finality she could never undo.

 

She remembers his arraignment, his plea for not guilty, and how that would implicate her and her mother. He stared her down from across the gallery, a challenge. _Now, you will have to testify against me. Now, you will have to betray me._ Because it was their word against his.  

 

She is so quiet on the next part, admitting as delicately as possible, almost terrified of the words. “I wanted to save him, too.” A wistful wink of hope, of remembering the small hope that maybe he would just run away, disappear, or maybe convince her it wasn’t him, that he wasn’t capable of doing those things, that her father was not that kind of man. “But, he didn’t want to be saved.” He wanted to burn. He wanted her and the rest of the Coopers to burn with him. And he wanted to prove her disloyalty by putting her up on that stand and declaring before the law, the people, before God that her father was a monster. 

 

Seated in that stand with the prosecutor asking her to explain what happened that night in excruciating detail, and her father didn’t blink once. In that single dark look, he tied her to him forever. _I’m your monster, Betty_. 

 

“Do you miss him?”

 

She wrings her hands in her lap, the anxiety spilling over without her noticing. “Of course I miss him.” He is poking holes in her filter. Or maybe it is her. “He’s my dad. We were close.”

 

“Do you think maybe this memorial will be an opportunity for you to process what happened?”

 

“For me to grieve?” He doesn’t respond either way, and Betty looks out the window, the maple trees greening up again. It was this time last year, spring returning as her world was ending. “I shouldn’t be allowed to grieve him.” Her father has been in his glass room in that windowless basement for less than a year, a grave with no stone, nameless but for a number on his chest pocket. It isn’t her father in that tomb.  

 

“Who says?”

 

“It’s not right.”

 

“Who is telling you that you shouldn’t be allowed to miss your father? Whose business is it?”

 

“I am,” she snaps. “He’s a horrible person. He’s not a person. He’s a monster! He did horrible things to me, to my boyfriend, to my best friends, my mother, this entire town. He doesn’t deserve my grief. He doesn’t deserve me missing him.” 

 

She can still feel his eyes on her in that courtroom with a look she was not accustomed to seeing on her father’s face, tracing her movements from the stand to the gallery like a predator. Even seated behind him, she could feel his gaze, his hurt, his disappointment, overlaid with a strange arrogance. That arrogance was not for her but for the fear he saw in everyone else, and he looked at her as if to say, _look at what you’re missing out on, sweetheart._ They were equally as disenchanted with each other, she thinks sullenly.

 

“The Black Hood was a monster, but before that, he was your father, right?”

 

“He was, but I know that’s a lie now.”

 

“Why do you think it was a lie?”

 

She is supposed to think it was a lie. With every awful admission that night, she was horrified to know it was a lie, that he had always been that resentful, hateful, violent. “Do you feel that your father loved you? You’ve told me before he was a good dad, the best a girl could ask for. If that’s all a lie, how does that make you feel about yourself, about how he raised you?”  

 

It did occur to her. That maybe she is just an apparition too, a carefully constructed admixture of Cooper niceties – steadfast, polite, righteous, well-mannered – wrapped up in a pretty pink package, a tempting fruit from every angle but rotten to the core. She examines the sum of her parts and thinks her father made her this way, with intention, in his image, preening stupidly when he told her he was proud of her, that she embodied all that was good and true about the Coopers. Divining what he meant now sends her down a rabbit hole of insecurities.

 

Was there ever anything good or true about the Coopers? Everything her father deemed good about the Coopers was tinged with oversweet, like something about to spoil. There was always something vulgar about her father’s overdrawn civility, a perfect complement to her mother’s two-faced charm. And isn’t that why she herself sets everyone off – Reggie, Cheryl, even her friends. Too nice. Too neat. No one truly trustworthy is that neat, that nice.

Somehow she felt Polly was always trying to prove how not neat and not nice she was, that she was not a Cooper robot like the rest of them. Then Betty felt like she had to overcompensate, to correct for her sister’s waywardness, to please her parents. The reasons she applied for publishing internships, built up her fantasies about Archie, about reviving the school newspaper, about joining the River Vixens – all an idyllic snapshot to show off to her father, to please him, her mother, to appease her. She wove her life so tightly with no room for error. Now she feels betrayed by that image because she was never the architect, never the master of her fate, and the commanders of her life dropped her through the cracks.

 

Something hits her then. She only deviated once. All her gold stars lined up but one.

 

Was that the only misstep in her father’s eyes, her preoccupation with Jughead?

 

“Betty.”

 

“My father hated Jughead.” Her father had implied it on more than one occasion, that a boy like Jughead did not deserve his daughter, that he was beneath her.  

 

Dr. Glass waits for her to explain her train of thought. “Does that mean you shouldn’t miss him?”

 

“He tried to kill him. He tried to murder the boy I loved. Love. And I thought maybe it was just Jughead, but he tried to murder Archie, too.” 

 

He nearly strangled Jughead at the same time Mr. Svenson was forcing her at gunpoint to bury Archie alive. While he was not present for both, it was by her father’s design. He wanted them both dead - the two boys she loved more than anything. He hated them enough to want them dead. 

 

The good doctor glances at the time. They don’t have much left. “These are two boys you are very close to, one of whom you are dating now. What do you think that means?”

 

Betty picks at the chair arm, remember that it annoys him and stops. “I don’t know. I don’t think it was something as basic as jealousy.”

 

“Do you think maybe he thought he was protecting you?”

 

“Protecting me?”

 

Dr. Glass leans forward on his elbows. “Now, I don’t know your father, but based on what you’ve told me, about your mother, your sister – your father has watched the women in his life, these women he loves most, used and abandoned by the men in their life. Your sister and Jason Blossom. Your mother and that boy from high school, FP.”

 

“Jughead’s dad,” Betty clarifies.

 

Realization glows in the good doctor’s eyes. “That would make even more sense. You start dating the son of the man who hurt your mother in high school, when your father met your mother. He feels like he is watching history repeat itself. He feels like he will lose you, too, and you and your father were very close, right?” Immensely close, she thinks. “I know it is twisted and what he did was wrong, Betty, but do you think maybe your father was acting out of what he thought was love? That he felt he was protecting you?”

 

“Jughead is not his father,” she bites, and Dr. Glass seems to be mentally filling something away for later. It incenses her more, his withholding, his prejudgments out of her reach. 

 

“I’m not defending your father’s actions or even his prejudices towards Jughead, Betty.” 

 

She takes a deep breath, settling into the cushions. Only five minutes left. “I shouldn’t miss him as much as I do.” She feels like the world’s biggest fool, a stupid little girl who misses her daddy. It is pathetic. 

 

“Perhaps we can save this for a later date. Would that be okay?” He asks like he isn’t sure she is in the right head-space to leave the session, but her mother will wax wroth if she gets the extra bill. Besides, she feels okay she thinks, relatively, even if there was no resolution, no emotional climax, mentally blue-balled by her own therapist, and still simmering from Dr. Glass’s commentary on Jughead. 

 

She nods, scooting to the edge of the chair to stand up, gather her book bag.

 

Then, Dr. Glass checks the clipboard again, peers over his pointer finger somewhere on the page. “Given that you are concentrating better and there are no disturbances in your sleep patterns, I’m going to reduce your dosage. Are you okay with that?”

 

He expects her to say no, set off the red flag, but she smiles her signature Betty smile, good-natured and accepting. “No, I think that’s a great idea, Dr. Glass.” The vise tigthens around Betty’s nerves. 

 

* * *

 

 

**March 2017**

**Betty**

**Master of None by Beach House**

After school, her father shows up on the curb outside Riverdale High perched on the hood of his powder-blue Mustang. She always wondered why he didn’t go for the classic sea-foam green. Between them both, green was the true Cooper color, not her mother’s cool blue.

 

He jogs around the hood to open the passenger-side door for her. “I thought we could grab some dinner, hang out? My treat.”

 

Betty tugs the straps of her backpack closer across her chest, rolling on the balls of her heels as she regards her father. In the last couple months since Chic came to live with them and Hal was ousted, her father has done this on occasion, shown up spur-of-the-moment to spend time with her. He must be lonely, but if she is honest, she misses him, too. Seeing him outside her school in the car they restored together, she feels a comforting flush of familiarity, sliding onto the steel-blue leather.

 

The combination of grey and blue reminds her of Jughead’s eyes, and Betty suddenly catches a flash of him slinking to the football parking lot where he hides his motorcycle, edging along the brick walls like a spider in a crowded hallway. She watches Archie jog to catch up with him, and the yellow leather of Archie’s letterman jacket looks so out-of-place against the worn denim of Jug’s jacket, the contrast of red hair next to dark grey wool, but then she sees the effortless smiles between the two of them, Archie’s relaxed and easy-going, Jug’s a little arrogant but well-meaning.

 

There is no hole where she used to be. Archie is now the middle man of nothing.

 

“How are things at school?” Her father asks, slamming the driver door closed and snapping her attention back inside of the car as Jughead and Archie disappear around the side of the main building.

 

“Fine,” she chirps quickly, settling her backpack between her knees. 

 

“The _Blue and Gold_?” He drums the steering wheel to the beat of a _Creedence_ song coming from the stereo as he rolls them off the curb and into the plodding after-school traffic. 

 

“Good, same old, dad.” 

 

This feels good, better, almost natural. There has always been an easy harmony between the two of them, even when they’re fighting, even when she is spitting angry with her.

 

Her phone dings with a text, and she apologizes to her father before checking it. It’s Veronica complaining about how Archie ditched her to have some _bro-time_ with his _brother from another mother_ , since it is supposedly Jughead’s day-off. The brunette even puts air-quotes around Archie’s exact words, followed by rolling-eyes emojis, and exasperated comments like she cannot believe she dates someone who talks like this.

 

She taps a quick text back to _let the boys be, V_. Her phone blows up with a whole string of messages, scolding Betty for paying into the whole _boys will be boys_ mentality, that Archie will just end up sick to his stomach after losing another eating contest to Jug at Pop’s with chili-cheese fries, that there goes Archie’s allowance and he will complain when Veronica wants to go to the opening at the drive-in and pay for everything, that she should get first dibs on her boyfriend. And the only thing Betty catches from the entire exchange is that the drive-in is reopening, which means Jughead will be shifting himself back over to the projection booth, that he probably already has ideas for the lineup for opening night. She wants to know what he is planning, but her father is looking between her and her phone that keeps dinging with Veronica’s self-involved diatribes on proper boyfriend etiquette.

 

_Have you ever tried to kiss a boy after he has just Hoovered Pop’s entire supply of chili cheese fries?_

Betty smothers a smile. _Yeah_ , she thinks privately to herself. But, Jughead has a better grasp of his stomach’s capabilities than Archie. What goes down stays down. And he was always considerate enough to wash his mouth out with milkshake before he kissed her, to give her something sweet instead of greasy salty. Not that she minded.

 

Kissing him was always good, great because when he did, she knew he was never thinking of someone else. He kissed her like that was the only thing he wanted to be doing, that she was worth more than all the chili cheese fries and Pop’s shakes in the world. He kissed her and she felt nothing but devotion, and it terrified her at the same time it thrilled. With Archie, half his mind was always elsewhere, and he was so frustratingly restless that it felt like Betty was chasing him even when he was sitting right across from her. And Jug, there was no place he would rather be, and she didn’t feel so emotionally breathless. At least, not in the bad way. Now, it is only in the bad way. 

 

She texts Veronica that she is hanging out with her dad right now, that she will call her tonight. _Oh fine, enjoy your father-daughter bonding time, traitor_. Betty regrets it a little now. She knows Veronica misses her own father something awful.

 

“That sounded like some emergency,” her father comments, signaling left.

 

“It’s just Veronica,” she brushes off. “Boy troubles.” She apologizes and switches her phone to silent, stuffing it in the front pocket of her backpack.

 

Her dad _hmms_ , not particularly interested. “Your mother told me you are tutoring after school now. That will look great on your college applications.” Just like that, her moderately good mood starts to dissolve again into frayed nerves. 

 

“It’s Jughead,” she states plainly, like because it is Jughead it almost doesn’t count. It would almost feel like cheating to put it on her resume. Because wouldn’t she do it for free, without the promise of reward? “And it’s just biology.”

 

“That’s a science, Betty,” her father reasons, smiling into the rear view mirror. “It reflects well on you. And with a troubled student – how’s it coming along?” 

 

Somehow, in retrospect, her father always seems to be fishing for Jughead’s shadow in Betty’s life – the _Blue and Gold_ , her English classes, tutoring sessions, potential dates aside. Or Betty fishes herself, finding him or the implication of him in every instance of her day-to-day. Her father just asks the right questions to put her mind on the track, giving her an excuse to think about him.

 

Yet, it chafes, the idea of Jughead as someone troubled, someone to be pitied. Wouldn’t he bristle if he heard it said this way? _I’m not some fucking charity case_. “I really don’t have to do much, dad. He just needs somewhere he can focus. He has a lot going on in his life.” At least, she assumes. “He’s intelligent, just unmotivated.”

 

Her father’s hand closes around her shoulder, squeezes, and the good feeling, a hint shows its face. “You’re a good influence, Betty.”

 

She just needs to put Jughead back in the box – her insecurities about him, the tattered state of their relationship, her shortcomings in all of those arenas – and let herself enjoy this. This is meant to be enjoyed. And Jughead doesn’t want her anymore. She has found quite quickly there are plenty out there that feel much differently. 

 

Besides, what she has now, the state of things, it is stable, for the most part. Broken but relatively stable for the moment, like tectonic plates after a rupture, energy released and settling. But if precedent is anything to go by, the tension will build up again. There will be another rupture. She just doesn’t know what form it will take this time. She doesn’t even know if she can be ready anymore.

 

He steers the Mustang into a gas station for a fill-up. She notices the car rattles as they idle, not the usual purr. “Dad, did this just start?”

 

Killing the engine, Hal shifts to the side to reach for his wallet in his back pocket, but doesn’t find it. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get around to it. Can you guess what it is?” She used to love these little tests. He would come at her with some auto ailment and ask her for a list of possible causes. It was one of their private games. 

 

As he leans across the shifter to unlock the glove compartment, she speculates it might be the bearings, torque converter, a host of things. He smiles, pops open the glove compartment. “Maybe we can work on it together this weekend?”

 

She sees the glint of the gun nestled next to his wallet. That’s new. “Dad, when did you get a gun?”

 

He grabs his wallet and snaps the glove compartment closed. 

 

“Oh, that,” he says, checking his wallet. “That was around the time that serial killer was on the loose. I just wanted to be prepared.” 

 

He waits a beat, staring at the neat line of bills in his wallet, all facing the same way, all creased in the middle with the corners smoothed out. “To be honest, Betty, I was worried sick about you and your mother. Here is some crazy going after people – people he’s decided are sinners – and you and your mother living alone in that house, right next door to one of the victims.”

 

“If he was going after people he considered _sinners_.” She almost cannot say the word without a little derision, the air-quotes implied. “Why would you be worried about us?”

 

Hal fingers the bills in his wallet, checking and double checking. The service attendant chews gum and stares at them from his cubicle, waiting to be flagged over. 

 

“Well, your mother,” her father starts, and his brow furrows in that same way Betty’s does when she is trying to figure out how to word something, to say it tactfully. “Let’s just say she has a colorful past.”

 

“Are you talking about Chic?”

 

“There is that,” he considers. “But there are other things. Your mother had quite the rap sheet in high school. Of course, when I met her, she decided to put that all behind her. Not that there weren’t a few slip ups since then,” he says with a short laugh, like it is all water under the bridge.

 

A quiet moment, her dad seems to be lost in thought, remembering, and Betty almost doesn’t want to ask. But, it’s been burning a hole in her head for days now. “Dad, did you know? That Chic wasn’t yours. I mean, in the beginning.”

“I suspected,” he admits, then adds matter-of-factly, “But I loved her.” 

 

The implication is there, what she always assumed but never knew, how much love had been lost between her parents, and how much of it went both ways. And it didn’t start with Chic. Betty doesn’t even know if it started with Polly.

 

“Okay, enough of this,” Hal says, waving it away. He doesn’t want to spend the afternoon ruminating on things out of their control either. Besides, whatever it is, it isn’t between her and her father.

 

“You want to guess the gallons?” They played this game, too, when she was younger. Whoever came closest got a dollar (not that her father ever made her give him the dollar). If anyone overshot, even if they were closer, they lost.

 

Betty rolls her eyes at him but smiles. “I’m not a little kid anymore.”

 

“You’re too good for a dollar?” He asks, putting the key in the ignition to check the gauge. “Looks like ten point four.” He waits for her to place her bet, but she holds out. “Okay, two dollars.” Silence. “Three dollars, final offer.”

 

She smirks and leans across the gear shift to read the fuel gauge. They cannot guess within a half gallon of each other, otherwise it is unfair. So, whoever goes first has the advantage. Back then, when they both got to the point of reading the gauge very well, he switched up who got to guess first. Glancing at the gauge, she knows already he overshot. Maybe on purpose. “Nine point three.”

 

They shake hands. He puts three dollars on the dash and then gets out to pay the attendant. In ten minutes, she is paying for two salted nut rolls with her three dollars, giving one to her father, saving the change for nothing special. It is a drop in the bucket now. 

 

* * *

 

 

**March 2018**

**Betty**

**Fairweather Friend by Khadja Bonet**

Under the gazebo, Mayor McCoy leads the memorial from the podium with the entire township gathered on the front lawn of City Hall, and Betty barely registers the words coming over the loudspeakers, the second-hand anecdotes of Dr. Masters surgical accomplishments or Midge Klump’s smattering of half-assed extracurriculars.

 

Betty could acknowledge Dr. Masters had been a godsend for Riverdale General. Fred Andrews probably would not have survived under the knife of another, but everyone whispered that the only thing Midge Klump was known for was parties, recreational drug use, and screwing/cheating on Moose Mason. She was the kind of girl that could never stick with one thing for too long, flighty at Vixens practice, always the understudy during school plays because she didn’t want the commitment. She was like those kids that had to taste-test all the candy in the store before they decided not to buy anything just to toy with the clerk. Midge was the kind of girl who liked to play.

 

Shame burns hot in Betty’s cheeks when she spots Mr. Klump with his remaining children, parked near Midge’s blown-up photo-shopped face, the same one they displayed during her funeral. What would he do if he knew what Betty was thinking about his daughter at that moment. God, she’s a terrible person.

 

Yet, McCoy’s overwrought retellings of the goodness in Dr. Masters and Midge Klump are not what irks Betty the most about the proceedings. Seeing Mr. Klump makes this more apparent, the gaucheness of it all.

 

She can feel Jughead standing sentinel behind her with his arms crossed, glaring at anyone who even so much as glances at her with something resembling condescension or outrage. Practically daring Reggie Mantle or any of the other Bulldogs huddled at the edge of the lawn to say one word about their presence. But, Betty doesn’t know if anyone tries, if anyone even cares she is there, and maybe Jughead will name names later at Pop’s with Veronica and Archie, list out all their neighbors that are now forever dead to him. She can only focus on the faces of those that are actually forever dead to them.

 

She cannot see the forest for the trees, cannot stop searching the mute smiling faces of her father’s victims frozen in time. Midge Klump looks like an advertisement for facial cleansers and Dr. Masters appears showcased like an endorsement for political office, and none of it seems real.

 

She cannot stop thinking about her father’s press interviews, his book deal, his documentary premiering at the end of the year, and how in the preview his victims are presented like stock images from a generic yearbook while he appears animated in living color, made more human than the people he put in the ground.

 

And then there are those that make it onto the stage, the ones who made her father’s list for less than savory reasons - Nick St. Claire, the sleazy smug and charismatic date rapist, and Geraldine Grundy, the beautiful and musical pedophile, a real-life siren.

 

The only one who seemed to have done nothing to deserve this, who seemed to have kept his nose clean, was Dr. Masters, and then she feels even more horrible because none of them deserved this. None of them deserved to be murdered, and her shame burns worse when all she can think about is what got them up on that stage in the first place. Shame that something in her subconscious is still trying to justify her father’s actions. _You will only see what I see, sweetheart_. 

 

She thinks about the ones they don’t show, the ones they aren’t allowed to acknowledge. The drug dealer tied to the train tracks to be decapitated. Her imposter brother’s unnerving porcelain face noticeably absent amongst the affected smiles. Maybe those two didn’t have photographs. No one ever got a firm ID on the dealer. And well, Mayor McCoy certainly couldn’t display the mugshots from the coroner’s reports or their arrest records. Wouldn’t that have been in poor taste?

 

Betty almost wonders if that would have been more appropriate, more accurate to show the truth of these false smiles. These faces, the ones on display, they aren’t real. The reality, she knows, is Dr. Masters’ life ended on a hospital gurney with his throat cut after he helped stitch up her father’s stab wound. After he tried to kill Jughead. The other reality is that Midge Klump didn’t die until her father pinned her through the left lung to the set of _Carrie_. Betty knows these things because she read the coroner’s reports. Before she knew her father had done them. Jesus, Midge Klump didn’t die until her father stuck her with the sixth knife. It took six knives until Midge’s heart stopped beating.

 

People do not want to see that, though. They don’t want to know how they suffered. But, Betty needs to know. She needs to know that Nick St. Claire was strung up in Mr. Svenson’s living room, that he worried the rope for an hour before he finally died. She needs to know that Chic’s face was beat in with a rock until he was drowned in the Sweetwater and left to wash up on the banks of Greendale. They could only identify him by his fingerprints, through his arrest record, and she discovered his real name was also Charles, like her real brother’s.

 

Fred Andrews is perched near the front of the stage, Hermione Lodge affixed to his side, Archie and Veronica a step behind them.

 

Fred Andrews looks at his own face displayed on the stage with confusion because he doesn’t know why he is up there. Betty sees it on his face. He doesn’t think he should be placed on the same level as those who actually lost their lives. It doesn’t feel right. He lived. He was lucky. Today is not his day. It is theirs, the faces. Betty sniffles and feels Jug warm against her back, his hand hovering over her shoulder but not touching, not yet. 

 

_Just faces now_ , Betty thinks. 

 

Betty catches the finality in Mayor McCoy’s last words, the declaration that this tragedy would never happen again, and Betty feels lightheaded. It is ending too soon. She hasn’t processed it yet. She needs a few more moments of silence, contemplation, because she still hasn’t grasped the gravity of her father’s actions. She hasn’t felt the full weight of their dead smiles, Mr. Klump crying quietly on the sidelines while he holds his youngest daughter too tightly. Dr. Masters’s widow marching determinedly over to comfort him.

 

The crowd starts to clap, a slow trickle until the Bulldogs start whooping, roughing and swearing. It isn’t enough for them either. They need a pound of flesh.

 

Jughead is whispering that maybe they should go, side-eying Reggie and the other roiling letterman jackets. Jughead curses under his breath when he makes eye contact with Reggie Mantle, and all of a sudden Betty cannot breathe.

 

Fred Andrews takes a step towards the stage, not clapping with the rest, no cutting commentary or despondent shake of the head. Just staring at the photographs, and not like Betty, trying to dissect them, make sense of their mute smiles. He sees what she cannot, what she was meant to – that these were real people. These smiles, hard to believe when posed this way, but these people were more than a photograph, and Betty knows she is going to cry because Fred Andrews is the only one who can see this, who can appreciate it.

 

Betty tries to, tries to grasp at whatever Fred comprehends readily, but it feels unreachable, like she is cut off from a part of herself she accessed without difficulty just before her father put the gun in her hands. Watching Fred feel it so easily, it hurts her.

 

Hermione spreads her arms along Fred’s torso, and Betty watches her rub at the space just under his ribs, press her nose and her lips to Fred’s shoulder before bowing her forehead towards him, eyes closing in what looks like a quiet prayer. Fred cradles her closer, kisses her hair, whispers something that makes her smile sadly.

At some point, the rabid froth of the Bulldogs reaches its peak, and Reggie is barreling through the crowd. Jughead’s hand is wrapped around Betty’s upper arm, guiding her behind him, and she moves without thought, on autopilot.

 

Archie dissolves from his father’s side and manifests in front of her. Veronica appears by default. Betty feels the first pinpricks of tears at the corners of her eyes as Fred’s eyes turn on the fray.

 

“This is not the time nor the place, Reginald,” Veronica snaps.

 

Betty knew this was a possibility. Everyone needs an outlet, and the perpetrator sits in a glass room in a concrete basement in another county. She is the next best thing. And in a way, she feels she deserves this. Wasn’t that why she came?

 

Archie, forever the middle man, attempts to keep the Bulldogs at bay, calming hands outstretched to keep Reggie at a distance. Reggie flares, pressing forward against Archie’s palms. “This is exactly the fucking place. She shouldn’t be here!”

 

“What the fuck is wrong with you? This isn’t about you!” Jughead yells at Reggie.

Reggie tries to reach around Archie and grab Jughead. “Why don’t you take your little psycho girlfriend and get the fuck out of this town! You’re not a fucking saint either, Jones! You think I don’t know?”

 

Betty feels the jostling, mimicking the waves in her stomach, feeling the indignity against each bony point that makes contact with a member of the crowd. She can see her father’s eyes in every face, Cooper green and greedy and self-righteous. _I’m your monster, Betty_.

 

She can’t be here anymore. She feels Jughead’s fingers brush her forearm, trying to grab her, missing by a hair, her name lost in the yelling and screaming. 

 

The metallic tang of the water from the fountain does nothing to help the medicine go down, but she swallows thickly, and even though the pill has just settled in her stomach, the tangles of her mind begin to unravel. Grasping the edges of the water fountain, she stares at the bees bumbling and clinging to patches of weedy clover, haphazard with a purpose. She likes the blankness that follows, her eyes watching them tumble from flower to flower, the comforting edges of her thoughts as she tracks the bees, the focused quality of her attentions.

 

“What’d you just take?”

 

Her mind closes the door on the bees, and another compartment opens up, the Jughead wing. A wing, not a compartment, she reminds herself. It started out as just a small side closet, like the one he slept in for part of their sophomore year, and now it spreads out before her with corners still unchecked.  How small everything else in her life feels when she opens this door. He has coopted rooms that once belonged to others.

 

“What?” 

 

“What’d you take?”

 

She releases the water fountain, even though she has unbearable cotton-mouth now. “Nothing, a prescription.”

 

“Can I see it?” The collar of his t-shirt is loose around his neck and wrinkled near the front, like someone got a handful of it and yanked good and hard.

 

“Isn’t that kind of rude, Jug?”

 

“Is it a secret?”

 

“I thought we didn’t talk about my sessions,” she defends, bristling when he takes a step towards her. 

 

“That’s the third one you’ve taken today, Betty. Is that the correct dosage?”

 

“Did you spy?” She crosses her arms, trying to flip the inquisition.

 

“It was in your medicine cabinet when I went for a Band-Aid. I wasn’t spying.”

 

_Fat chance,_ she muses. “And you read the dosage, what, in passing?”

 

“Yeah, in passing,” he brushes off. “Is he prescribing it?” 

 

Because wouldn’t he like to believe it is all Dr. Glass’s fault, all his doing. That Betty was set up for failure by yet another authority figure in her life. That Betty doesn’t have the agency to own up to her own vices. That she couldn’t lie and scheme her way into this bad habit with no one the wiser. It is a wonder she was able to keep it from Jughead this long.

 

“Yes,” she snaps.

 

“Does he know you’re taking more than you should?”

 

“I take it as needed,” she argues, her anger flaring. “It’s really none of your business, Jughead. We investigate others, not each other,” she throws at him.

 

He takes a step towards her like he is approaching something feral, and she seethes. He senses it, stops a bare three feet from her. “I’m worried.”

 

It is like her release valve, and she deflates forward, spreading her arms around his middle, her arms sliding up his shoulder blades. “You don’t have to be,” she tries, pressing her cheek to his sternum. “I’m fine. It’s just a rough patch, Jughead. It’ll pass.”

 

He presses his lips to the top of her head, gathers her closer, and she could relax if his heart wasn’t beating so fast. Or it’s hers. She cannot tell.

 

“Tell me what’s going on with you,” he whispers, his fingers sifting through the perfect twirl of her ponytail. She hopes he will wrap it in his hand, but when she looks up, she doesn’t see anything resembling that brute possessiveness she craves. His tender concern chafes something awful.

 

“Let’s go somewhere,” she decides quickly, tugging him towards her. “The Register is only a block away.”

 

He frowns. “No, Betty.” It looks like disappointment, and it repulses her. “Please, just talk to me.” About what? That feed-for-all she just walked her dumb little lamb ass straight into? 

 

Her hands slip from his shoulders, and she is ready to push him away, but he braces one hand around the back of her neck and slings his other arm along her lower back, fingers curling oppressively around her waist, daring her to try and shove him, try and rip herself away. The hard press of his arm along her back feels like she is leaning the wrong way over a railing, arched over a precipice, and that if he let go now, she would fall. The concern fades from his eyes, replaced with something like open-ended acceptance, that he is really just waiting for receipt of her thoughts. It is easier to swallow, easier to face. He is too good at this. To the point, it annoys her. 

 

“Control,” she says so lowly that if she weren’t wrapped up by him, she doubts he would have heard it. “I need it.”  

 

He exhales, and the blank look dissolves into fondness, like he is touched by her admission. “I know.” 

 

“I just – I can’t feel control without it,” she tells him. It, the drugs. Her heart speeds up with shame, but his palm is firm on the back of her neck.

 

“Why are you so guilty?” He asks like he cannot possibly understand how she could be. She wants to tell him just because she didn’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean she isn’t complicit. But, it’s always been more than that. It is easy to feel guilty about her involvement in her father’s reign of terror. It is perfunctory, and in some ways, more manageable. It’s the other things, the unforeseen things, the things she cannot let herself feel. 

 

“Because I miss him,” she murmurs, so quietly that she fears God might strike her down right then and there. “I miss him, and I’m not allowed to. I’m not supposed to.” 

 

She feels a good cry coming, but she bites her tongue to keep her chin from wobbling. “He was my dad, Jug, and he was a monster.”

 

With her head cradled in his hand, she watches him looking everywhere on her face but in her eyes like he is searching for some imperfection, some flaw to smudge away, and then he seems to find nothing. 

 

“It’s okay to miss him.”

 

“What he did – it was horrific,” she contends, pointing out the obvious, like he is missing the point. “What he did to you,” she reminds him.

 

“It’s okay to miss him, Betty,” he repeats like he didn’t hear her.

 

“Don’t you hate him for what he did to you? If he hadn’t, they wouldn’t have – ,” she stops because she really thinks she is going to start crying.

 

“No, not for what he did to me,” he asserts. “I’m sure he loves you, Betty. Your dad, not that other guy.”

 

Betty wonders privately to herself, the question on the tip of her tongue. Because they have never really discussed it. “Do you miss your dad?”

 

He seems a little taken aback, but then he smiles small. He should be used to this by now, Betty pitching things back on his head. “Sure, in a way,” he decides, and it sounds flippant, but she knows it is comparing apples to oranges. It is a false equivalence, and the only thing that Hal Cooper and FP Jones had in common was at some point they loved the same woman and at another point they ended up fathering some children, some by the same woman. The similarities ended there. 

 

“Do you feel guilty, too? For what your dad did?” She searches his eyes for a tell, and it’s there, the same worry, the same twisted belief that they were all cut from the same cloth, implicated in the sins of their fathers. “Because I do, Jug. I feel responsible.”

 

He sighs her name, and she thinks this is it, defeat, bittersweet triumph, her misery vindicated, but then his hand is guiding her head forward, and she feels the warm press of his lips to her forehead. “He made sure you felt that way,” he murmurs above her, and it hits so close to home that she really starts crying, ugly sobbing that he turns into himself.

 

Just as she struggles to reconcile the incongruent parts of herself and those parts that miss her father desperately, she cannot reconcile the two men, Hal Cooper, loving father of two with a decidedly large judgmental chip on his shoulder, and the Black Hood, the physical embodiment of that chip, intentions made into actions. Like a spell broken, the two men fall away from each other, the Hood into his little glass box in the basement, and her father, into her heart.

 

And how good it feels now to let herself miss him, to let herself remember him as she loved him.

 

With her face pressed to his shoulder, Jughead hides her away from the world in a place where this is possible. He doesn’t say anything more. The hot press of his mouth to the top of her head is comforting, stabilizing, and while she hiccups, releasing painful moans left trapped in her chest for months, he holds her. At certain points, it hurts so much she tries to shove him away, certain she cannot stand to feel it anymore, and he tightens his arms around her. He doesn’t shush her like a child or scold her, and he doesn’t let her go.

 

She doesn’t know how many moments pass, but her stomach grumbles, grief hunger, and he finally lets her stand up straight with a chuckle. She laughs a little at the wet spot on the front of his shirt, but it is ruined anyway from where Reggie got a hold of it. Wiping at the mascara on her cheeks, he stops suddenly, his thumb hovering just below her left eye.  

 

She takes a moment to look at him, this boy she loves, and thinks of how different her life might have been if her father had someone. Her father let his darkness eat him alive. She feels she has plumbed the deepest parts of hers, and Jughead is still standing in front of her, letting her miss the monster. 

 

“Hold still,” he commands. “Close your eyes.” She does, and she can feel his smile on her face, his thumbs on her cheekbones. “Make a wish.” It is always the same one, and when he releases a quick puff of air on her cheek, blowing the stray eyelash away, her troubles seem to float away with it, if only for a moment. 

 

* * *

 

 

**March 2017**

**Jughead**

**Bad Girl by Devendra Banhart**

 

When Jughead gets home, Fred is sitting in the living room with his feet propped on the coffee table, the dog’s head in his lap. He scratches idly behind Vegas’s ears with the sports section of the _Register_ folded in his free hand.  

 

“You’re late, Jughead.” Fred should have been in bed by now. Jughead tries to remember if his own father ever stood vigil for him.

 

His guardian sits up, jostling Vegas awake. He tosses the paper on the coffee table. Vegas pads over to Jughead, licks at the popcorn grease on his fingers.

 

“We talked about this, bud,” Fred starts, patient as ever.

 

He wasn’t when the woman from social services showed up in mid-January to talk about Jughead’s pathological truancy of the previous semester. For a second, Jughead thought he would finally see the man’s composure crack, but Fred only grabbed Jughead by the shoulders, a little roughly – not as rough as his own father would – and told him that he could only do so much before Jug got lost in the system, how FP was in and out of group homes throughout high school, how much good that did him in the long run.

 

“We set a curfew. You got off work hours ago. Where were you?”

 

“Pop’s,” he says with a shrug, skirting around Vegas’s overtures for pets. 

 

Fred searches his face. “If I call, he’ll confirm?”

 

Pop’s would throw him under the bus so fast. Few people can lie to Fred Andrews, especially when he got shot in the man’s diner not six months ago. That would definitely be salt in the wound.

 

“I was with a friend,” Jughead amends. “It wasn’t exactly planned. She needed my advice on something.”

 

A girl. Fred immediately assumes. “Betty?” Would that be more forgivable to Fred? If it was Betty.

 

Jughead shifts on the balls of his feet. He really wants to wash his uniform, return it to the Bijoux, forget about that mediocre blockbuster hellhole until the end of the year. He smells like popcorn all the time. Jesus, he just really doesn’t want to think about Betty, ticks through the list of things he has to get done for the week. 

 

Fred is still waiting for his answer. “No, another friend.” Fred looks skeptical. Rightly so. Jughead doesn’t have a lot of friends, less so friends that are girls. “From my old neighborhood.”

 

Then, Fred looks worried, almost angry. Jughead watches him connecting the dots. He hasn’t so much as breathed a word of his father’s second family, the crime-inclined one, but Fred isn’t stupid. When Jug crashed his bike a few days ago, Fred accepted his story about the roads being wet and taking the curve near Wyndham Farm a little too hard, but Fred can also string together events that are too close to be coincidence. Jug crashes his bike. Jug misses his curfew without calling. Jug meets up with people he has never before mentioned to Fred.

 

His guardian stands up, snaps his fingers for Vegas to go upstairs. The dog must assume it is bed time, whines a little until Fred gives him the eye. 

 

“You call when you’re going to be late next time, Jug. And better yet, you’re not going to be late next time, or I’m going to ground you. Understand?” Jug can tell he wants to ask what kind of advice this girl was looking for, what Jug could possibly do about it.Jughead still feels like he probably won’t be able to do much, honestly. 

 

Fred takes a few steps towards him, his hands in his pockets. “You’ve been doing really well these last couple months. I’m really proud of you.” He always starts with the positive, a pick-me-up, softening him up. “I’m going to consider this a fluke.”

 

And Jughead will consider these words a pre-emptive strike, a warning that he better ace his next biology test. Betty is a great tutor. Betty. Goddamnit. Jughead capitulates. “Okay, I’m sorry. I understand.”

 

Fred opens his arms for a hug, and Jughead really isn’t up for it, but he lets Fred do it if it will make him feel better. Jug isn’t accustomed to this level or frequency of affection, and he wonders if Fred is trying to make up for the fact Jughead didn’t get a lot of hugs in life. Like that is some fundamental thing Jug might not have known he was missing out on.  

 

His foster father holds him a beat longer than Jughead anticipated, and it doesn’t feel so bad.

 

Fred whispers conspiratorially in his ear, “You should wash your uniform. Girls don’t exactly dig the greasy popcorn smell.” As he pulls away, he claps Jug on the shoulder. “I would ask about this girlfriend of yours, but it’s late.”

 

“She’s not a girlfriend,” Jug says quickly. “She’s a friend, an acquaintance barely.” _Protest a little more, Jones. You can always dig deeper._

 

Fred smiles like he is in on the joke. “Okay, bud, get some sleep.” Like all is forgiven. Jughead reminds himself to keep score because clearly Fred has the lay of the land now.

 

Archie must be in the garage lifting weights because Jughead knows Fred would be cruising the streets in his truck if he didn’t have clear tabs on his actual son. Jughead welcomes the reprieve, though, closing the bedroom door behind him.

 

Ever since Archie started sleeping with Veronica, Fred imposed a strict curfew on them both. Archie has broken it about four times since then, grounded twice. Jughead has been more careful. Because he knows what is at stake, what it is like to be in the system, what it would be like when they strip Fred of his guardianship and then try to pawn him off on his mother, what she might come up with to avoid taking him in, how much more that will hurt.

 

He strips off his uniform shirt, sniffs it, gags a little. Toni didn’t say a word about his stench. What a trooper. 

 

He checks the time. Archie has been spending an awful lot of late nights in the garage, claiming he is working on new songs, maintaining muscle mass in the off season, a number of other uninspired excuses. And maybe he is. Half the time. Jug suspects he spends the other half of the time screwing his girlfriend on that ratty, dog-hair-covered couch.

 

Not three days ago, Jughead imagined pinning Betty beneath him on that same couch. It was that stupid dress. He wanted to press her into the lumpy cushions, his fingers skimming the thin little straps of that lavender dress off her bare shoulders, lips tracing that downy soft path until he left a bite mark on the smooth round of her shoulder. Imagining her gasp of surprise sent a jolt of pleasure straight to his dick, and he had to reposition his legs to hide the evidence.

 

She has been doing it more lately than in the past couple months, making excuses to get close to him.

 

At the beginning of their tutoring, she avoided touching him. She could barely look him in the eye, and that was easier for him. He could handle her anxious because that meant he didn’t have to ignore his own temptations to look, to observe. Her nerves got in the way of her noticing.

 

It isn’t so easy now. Now in her presence, he is under the microscope, constantly. It must be showing because she is growing bolder. From her knees, that flicker of her gaze at his belt, lower, and he collapsed onto the couch before it became obvious that she was getting under his skin.

 

In his own mind, he played it off as naivete, the doe eyes that preceded the glance, that she didn’t know what she was looking for. The glance meant nothing. Maybe shyness that landed in the wrong spot. Then, that ended up turning him on even more until he reminded himself Betty was not guileless.

 

When they were together, those brief wonderful weeks that now feel like an aberration, she often initiated their make-out sessions. Sometimes it felt like she was always cooking up schemes to kiss him, to get him to kiss her. He didn’t mind. If he could, he would kiss her all the damn time.

 

Better yet, she pushed him to do more than kissing. He would keep his hands safely curled around her hips, and then hers were guiding his palms lower, under her skirt, curling his fingers under the backs of her thighs so he could feel the elastic of her panties. Before he could ask her if he could slip his tongue in her mouth, her teeth were nipping at his bottom lip, her warm pink tongue slipping inside his mouth while he was properly distracted by her rocking against the front of his jeans.

 

She must have felt the effect it had on him, an obvious second opinion prodding her lower belly, but she never shied away. If anything, she moved against him harder, emboldened by his arousal, like it was the green light she needed. On one occasion, she reached for the button on his jeans, would have gone farther if he hadn’t snatched her hand, flipped their positions, pressed himself between her legs and pinned her arms above her head so she couldn’t try again.

 

God, he really misses making out with Betty Cooper, he thinks hopelessly, and then, _that beautiful little devil knew exactly what she was doing_. It is fun and it is awful, and he wanted to tear her apart that afternoon in the Andrews garage, shake her and tell her it isn’t worth it, that she needs to stop. She needs to keep her end of the bargain. Be _friends_. The word itself leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

 

He once overheard locker room talk, guys like Reggie and Chuck making passing comments about the freshman crop of girls. Better Cooper entered the equation, followed by speculation about what she would be like in bed. While Jughead catered to his own imagination, he caught a terrible string of words that made his gut cramp. _Prude, tease,_ and worse _, dead fish_ , made the rounds in the conversation. Then, Jughead found himself in a shoving match with Reggie that ended with him in the principal’s office nursing a maturing shiner with a bag of crushed ice, the day his father actually came to pick him up, the day he met Penny Peabody for the first time.

 

Christ, his mind plays the worst association games on him. But, the point – no one knew what Betty was really like. No one knew a goddamn thing. Except for Jughead, and even then, he felt like he had only scraped the surface. 

 

He finishes toweling off after his shower and despite feeling exhausted, sleep feels like a shaky apparition on the horizon, that if he laid down on the air mattress, it would disappear entirely. He could write. He could finish reading the assigned chapter from the _Scarlet Letter_ , even though he read it in eighth grade of his own volition. 

 

He hangs the towel on the closet door, and then slips inside, digging in the top corner behind a box of Archie’s boyhood trophies and schoolwork. Jug gets a handle on the small duffel, carefully maneuvers it down.

 

He listens to the sounds of the Andrews house for a beat, the distant thud of dropped weights in the garage, the staticky sound of Fred Andrews brushing his teeth in the bathroom that abuts Archie’s room. It is an old house. He can hear footfalls throughout the second floor, when cabinets close in the kitchen or someone is jiggling the key in the front door lock. He will know when someone is coming.

 

He turns the lights off in the bedroom but leaves the window curtains open. Then, he can see her, but she cannot see him. Not that she ever looks much over here anymore. Her curtains are open, though, and the lights are on, low and green and soft. Just the sight of the lights makes his nerves thrum happily. 

 

Perching Archie’s desk chair six feet from the window, he takes a seat with the duffel at his feet. 

 

If he hears Archie’s feet on the creaking wood stairs, he knows he will have at least fifteen minutes to finish up, hide the evidence because his roommate will shower off before bed. If he miscalculates, he can always kick the duffle under the bed and fall onto the mattress before Archie reaches the landing. But, he is rarely wrong.

 

He unzips the duffel. After the incident with the supposed Black Hood, he emptied the treehouse of his keepsakes, the things he kept hidden in the secret compartment under the platform. He didn’t want the Black Hood to come back and find them, perfect blackmail fodder. Now, he keeps them stowed in the back of Archie’s closet. Luckily for him, his roommate is not much of a pry-er. 

 

From this distance, he cannot see her room as clearly, so he nicked her father’s old pair of hunting binoculars. 

 

His hands tremble as he reaches for the specs. It’s been so long. He hasn’t allowed himself the luxury in months. It is like he is on his back again, thrown from the treehouse steps to the Andrews yard, the air knocked out of him. Like there is a knot in the center of his chest and it has been stuck there for three months, and if he could just look, just a moment, he could take an easy breath. No Hood over his shoulder. No musty basement of the Wyrm. No skid-marks on his elbows by the side of Wyndham Farm. It would only be her in his viewfinder.

 

He lifts the binoculars to his eyes, adjusts the width of the eyepieces. Listening for a beat to the sounds of the house, he then focuses the lenses, first on the green glow and then where she flutters past the window. 

 

He sees a shimmer of fabric, a flourish of silk in spring green. She slings it across her shoulders, her hips swaying as she studies herself in the mirror. He watches her turn her head towards her desk, nodding, sees her lips move. She is talking, drops the scarf behind her to skip over to her desk. _Is she talking to herself?_ That would be kind of cute. Maybe she is singing to herself. He has watched her do that before, dancing about her bedroom in her cheerleader uniform and shouting bubblegum pop lyrics. 

 

The specs skim down her backside, the lavender skirt of her dress riding up so he can see the backs of her thighs. He releases a three-month-old sigh from deep in his belly.

 

Her shoulder moves, adjusting something on top of her computer monitor, a small camera hooked to the top. She glances behind her, almost at him, and his breath hitches in his throat. But she smiles, coyly shakes her head before stepping back from the desk, the monitor, the camera. She is talking to someone, twisting on her heels like she is embarrassed. She smiles like she does when she is tickled pink by something, like she did when Jughead compulsively complimented her, when they were together. _Shit_.

 

Her fingers are tripping over the zipper of that lavender dress, the one that drove him crazy that afternoon in the Andrews garage, the one she wore braless, the one he wanted to tear off her body. With one hand, she pulls the zipper down halfway, her other arm slung across the tops of her breasts like the dress might fall at any moment. Jughead watches her say something to the monitor, and then she laughs at whatever the reply, something funny, something that would make his blood boil.

 

_Shit_. He throws the binoculars down, the plastic cracking against the wood. _What the hell did you expect, Jones? That she’d never move on?_

 


End file.
